Jewelry photography requires a lot of time for trial and adjustment.  Gemstones are often translucent so the lighting is critical to capture the many shades and the way the human eye will perceive it when worn.  Manipulating the backlighting is key coupled with light modifiers to direct the light.

No flash was used. The difficulty in photographing jewelry is the highly reflective surfaces. With more stones and beveled cuts the number of reflections multiply.  We used one softbox for continuous lighting, scrims to create gradients and foam core for bounce.  Shooting an entire product line with few “like-products” requires a new setup for each piece.

Shot using a Canon f2.8 100mm Macro lens and a Canon 5D Mark 3 camera.