Jewelry Photography is the most difficult assignment in commercial photography. Jewelry is very small and very reflective. This combination makes it extremely difficult to achieve good results even from a professional. Jewelry Photography is created out of four basic elements: lighting, experience, lens and cameras. Together they produce a powerfull communication tool called photography. When these four elements are mixed the wrong way you end up sending the wrong message and the wrong message means lost sales, or worse, you may never see, or hear from the thousands of potential customers. Face it, poor photography is a liability. Curious? Read on, there's more. In an online e-commerce store you never see your customers so you don't get the feedback that a brick-and-mortar store will get. This is the reason you need a specialized professional creating the look and feel of your store and sending the right message. In an online business, 100% of the jewelry is sold based on visual impact and interest in any particular item. If the photography is less than perfect your costumer is not going to buy and you've missed a sale. Multiple that by 10,000 or 100,000 and it's costing you millions in lost sales! Jewelry is a luxury product. It's bought by choice, not by necessity and in most cases, it's an impulse buy. This is especially true with e-commerce where customers are only a click away from a purchase. If you're serious about selling jewelry online you should be serious about getting the best jewelry photography available with a photographer that can help you grow your business and be successful. Successful online jewelry businesses are successful because they send the right message. Web sites like Bluenile, Tiffany and Ashford present an image of elegance, confidence and professionalism.
On the other hand, what kind of message do you think the web sites below are sending?
These web sites, like many others, operate under the assumption that low priced jewelry is the most important strategy to being successful online. Consequently, they may lower their profit margin to the point that they can't afford normal operational costs including quality jewelry photography. Is that a smart business decision? Others operate under the assumption that the internet is a low cost medium and therefore they don't need to spend a lot of money even on quality photography. It is true that the internet is low cost medium, but your images should not and need not suffer...low resolution does not mean low quality photography. Yes, digital photography has become very popular...digital cameras make the process easier and faster but that doesn't make it better. Are you tempted by web sites offering a jewelry photography studio in a box like The Cocoon, The Box and The Bowl? Don't be fooled. They offer you instruction on the equipment they want you to buy but consider the total expense in time and dollars. It takes time to achieve good photographic results, not to mention learning and mastering photo manipulation, editing and storage. Can you afford to do it yourself or pay an employee to take on the task? Add to that the actual cost of the equipment and it becomes an expensive and time consuming undertaking. Below are the four most important elements to Jewelry Photography. Return to Table of Content Lighting. The lighting set-up is the most important component in jewelry photography and is the product of professional experience. Jewelry is highly reflective and when photographing it you naturally capture the surrounding area in the surface of the jewelry. With skill and properly positioned lighting unwanted reflections can be minimized or avoided completely. Also, every piece of jewelry is different so each piece presents new challenges and rules on the set-up table. For example, a ring with an opal stone requires different lighting than a necklace with diamonds, or a pendant with onyx, or earrings with emeralds, and so on. There is no "one-for-all" lighting set-up when photographing jewelry. The images below illustrate a sequence of lighting improvements on a diamond ring.
Return to Table of Content Experience. Every piece of jewelry is shaped in a different way. The design is different, the shape is different (ring, earring, pendant, etc.), the finish of the metal is different and the opacity of the gemstone is different.\ Only experience can dictate the best way to light and set up a particular piece of jewelry. Attention to detail is crucial and the ability to control the elements is what creates a good final image. When you commission a professional jewelry photographer you're buying their experience and skill. Experience is knowledge acquired over time. It's knowing exactly what to do with a piece of jewelry....knowing how to style it; knowing the best lighting to use with a colored stone mounted in a yellow gold ring; or knowing how to get the most detail from a diamond by controlling color, light intensity and the direction of light. Anyone can take a snap-shot but not everyone has the talent, patience and skill to be a jewelry photographer. The two should never be compared.
Return to Table of Content The lens is the most important component in a camera. A general purpose lens is exactly that, for general purposes, and will not do a very good job for jewelry photography. A lens that is specifically designed for professional macro photography will the provide the best results for jewelry photography. The best Macro Lens costs between $2,000 and $4,500. A good macro lens will provide high contrast and feature a multi-coated lens (for better colors), distortion free at magnification of 1:1 and 2:1, aperture smaller than f32 (for increasing depth of field) and magnification of 1:1 at a distance greater than 2 feet (camera will reflect in the jewelry if is too close).
Return to Table of Content Camera.The camera is relatively unimportant. Whether it's digital or traditional, big or small, it's simply a recording device and the recorded image is limited only by the size of the film (35mm, 2 1/4, 4x5, 8x10 or in the case of digital camera how many mega-pixels). What is vitally important, in a camera that's being used for jewelry photography, is the ability to swing and tilt, allowing for total control of perspective and focus. The best and most accurate details are the result of precise focusing and a professional large format camera is the only camera that allows you to swing and tilt. For other disadvantages about digital camera read "Digital Camera vs Traditional" below.
Return to Table of Content |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
