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Shoot: Jewelry Part I

you know you saw the pictures of the chase jarvis shoes right how slim the depth of field wass that was f four that wasn't even half two point eight that was at four and you could get like two strings of focus before you lost it now was shot with one hundred millimeter macro that's on there so you know that close not much depth of field a question from coal miner twenty two from st peter minnesota um on the table top photography I knows that you pulled out a tile here but the question wass do you suggest black table to reflect negative light or do you ever use a lighter color tables I all of the tables I've ever used were black and if I've had a white table have painted a black it's easier for me to get rid of the color of and to base what light it at no color and then add white I can always drop a white piece of foam core down there black foam core a little harder to final more difficult but you could if you did a lot of stuff on white you could do a whitened and drop drop black fella...

but if you need it black I just don't do any colored tables no I don't know mahogany sze or anything like that because I don't want any you know what we saw with that one wine glass shot it's a little bit of the table was coming back on that issue that table was a bright red table or something could be kind of a problem and we're gonna bring no let's just do this let's fly it boobs quiet right there and now what we're going to do with this we're going to use this clip on like that we made so we really are gonna have some ambien issues because that thing's not very bright but what it does is it presents a high light for this jewelry type okay just grab one of those and put a stand over here what we're going to do is actually be able to create a highlight because at some point on the bat point on the back of this this diffuser we're gonna have a hot spot that hot spots could be brighter in the jewellery are on around the back of the jewellery than it is on the edge but it's not going to change the look of the jewelry in other words the whole this whole thing's gonna like the jewelry but we're going to get a pinpoint reflection from that hot spot uh that clamp light no no no I just put a clamp on it grab a red clamp and plug this in is our plug somewhere with an extension cord sir yes don just yesterday you went over different types of lenses that you prefer to use with tabletop photography you go over that again today for those who are just joining us now yes we're working within a very small for table top not product in the whole world of product but in tabletop harvey working in pretty tight here so I I like the thirty ln full frame lens for you know for base point I like a thirty five millimeter of fifty millimeter in eighty five or twenty four fifty and a hundred if you want to take a little more on each extremes I rarely whatever use a two hundred millimeter for this kind of shooting I mean I have but I probably could count on fingers and not too many toes before I was done on how many times and again with the very wide like the twenties or the sixteens we saw earlier when I went to a twenty millimeter we went right off this table then way even up close on those keys we went right off the table and now we're seeing all that stuff out there so it just becomes a little bit for of a challenge and it also distorts you know you're in that that tight with the twenty millimeter lens on a full frame camera you're distorting your subject that could be great for still life but it might be a problem for product you know they may not want you to distort the things they're starting the keys for fun that's editorial think distorting the wine bottles maybe not so cool if you make the wine bottles they don't look like the bottle of themselves then what are the people look forward to grocery store they don't see it what would be considered a normal linds on a on a we see thirty five millimeter full frame that would be a uh fifty millimeter um on a on a crop lens camera would be like a thirty five yeah when I shoot with my fifty here we go so we just need a little something to get it out right there when I shoot with my fifty on my camera my crop camera I'm shooting like a seventy five and I really hate it just don't like that focal ink I like the fifty the normal fifty so I find myself of my twenty to thirty five fifty five thirty five a lot because it resembles that normal leads so my my next camera is full frame there's no doubt about it so so don folks are asking at w s creations how did you treat that clam plan to get the filter people on it uh the lamp but you were just pulling up um how did I do this uh it's on the pdf that should go download what it is a piece of foam core we cut a hole out a little bit smaller than the lamp lid and we pressed it on so it's nice and tight gaffer's taped it way put a little you can see the little triangles here this's little triangles doubled the foam core and then stretch the the shower curtain over the front of this thing and we're done with it and that's it and it's just taped so this is this is a grand total of a baby a dollar maybe plus the you know of course we went to a hardware for this thing so we paid off a lot is hard we're good good guys five or ten minutes to make huh probably only five or ten minutes thank yourself yeah well took longer to cut the whole in anything else that's the best the most challenging so that's this light is actually cutting the whole so I'm gonna put some white cards up here folks so we can block out some of this ambience that's what I'm concerned about andi andi forward a little bit back a little bit back right there right there good way take this down even lower yeah we can't write here that hot spot right there I'm putting these do you see a camera guy come right in here and look at this seal hot this is right on the top can you can you can you kind of see that I do have a hot spot in the middle of this scrim that hot spot in the middle of the scrim is going to be part of my shot okay what I have on here the hundred and let's get a centimeter meter on it another white card in here to block some of this and being out of here all right so we're gonna take a meter reading and remember how I said take the meter reading you take the meter reading straight up and these things he kind of split the difference and that I s o a t s one point for point five take her I also up to eight hundred I've got five of the sixtieth we'll see what have five of his sixtieth gives us anybody want to guess you think it looks like at five in the sixtieth doesn't look like a five sixteenth to me so we'll see hey flash went off we'll take this off where is it it's way over there somewhere it's on the table all right well that's not bad is yeah nice contrast ing way just clamp it on the outside I just want to block the wind with it okay so that's that's that's a close up lens that's one hundred men millimeter macro lens right that's not really dramatic for this particular subject it would be a good catalogue shot we could always say oh yeah we need a close up shot of the front of this jewelry and I'm gonna come in just like this and get a close up shot out from the jewelry there we go but that's not as dramatic as let's go with the twenty thirty five again has creating a little forced perspective and you can see it f five at that distance we don't have enough depth of field doing and we're at a fiftieth of a second I'm shooting at five at a fiftieth of a second on one hundred millimeter lens I'm just glad it's in focus at all I'm one of those guys who believes in yeah your shutter speed never being less than the length focal length of your camera so I don't really trust myself with that focal length I used to with film cameras coming even think shooting with film is sharper than shooting with digital or have had that experience as I have I have a lot and you know why I think that is because when you take a picture with a film camera when you depress the shutter and if you hear the click right you got the shot so while tend to do is I'll be shooting and assumes like hear the click I move both the digital camera all digital cameras it's not done yet it's still making the shot even if you know a sixteenth of a second it still folk just like you pocket camera you push the button then go order soup and come back before it takes a shot these things do the same thing just a little faster so I I've been on tripods all the sharpness issues they're gone but if I'm standing in hand holding way go wish I could get in a little tighter with this thing but I don't have my close up tubes with may you can't have that can't have wrinkles in the chain never here we go it's not bad huh kind of pretty notice how we have that little bright spot right there we're not getting as much of it as I wish we could because of the ambien thie ambience loading in on our side but you can see a little bit of a bit of a patina right in here are ambiance over overloading up so we're gonna have to go to break here in just a few seconds so a few minutes so um questions on this one more card bret just to use any questions on this way got one here um maui photo regarding the d I y and light modifiers that you're using have you ever run into any fire hazards or any tips you have for not from using the proper materials yes even reading remember I mentioned you don't get the plastic to shower curtains because the plastic ones catch on fire yeah yes they dio on day leave big piles of stuff smoky smelly plastic in your brand new carpet I don't uh here wouldn't know anything no I read it somewhere the other thing the other thing is I'm using tungsten lights in the studio amusing very bright hot lights I've got a couple of five k's in a couple of two k's and you turn onto five k's in two to case well my video guys he'll tell you that warms a place right up we're actually using cool lights here and it's still warming the place up so my place could get hot real fast but I use on ly the best materials when I'm working around hot lights on ly the tools likes fun glass for diffusion not shower curtains or anything like that I used the materials made for the movie industry when I'm doing it so I don't get d I y I'm liking leads and the little ferrars for precedents for this kind of stuff we get one more shot while you ask me a question all right so a question from a criss cross in is with regard to the necklace how much importance are you putting on the placement of the patina on the background composition wise and that's chris from england I'm sorry said to the patina how much important semi on the thie design with regard to your composition but the necklace I want that necklace right on that hospital that's what I want I want the necklace on the hot spot before we go to break do have a spritzer uh a little water spritzer like he would spray someone's hair with a little bit of water maybe maybe someone's listening back there they're going where suspect sir wait no uh how about that water over there brett school grab that little thing of water over there and is there a napkin close your fingertips go to break her in just second but what we knew we were gonna make this thiss background real efficient we make it real efficient you'll really see that hot spot right now it's a dull slate now it's going to be very efficient can you hold the camera sir got it good thank you wear your studio down would you use water for this or would you use a blistering oh I rarely use glisten for anything but glasses um for this I would just use water no matter what it costs to do it and now I'm gonna late of the jewelry down on the right way we were shooting the back of it before which I thought was pretty cool now we're actually going to see the little pearl things here okay up to there can you see it now I see it now is that okay it's all right good right there that's what I'm talking about and that's what we were not seeing because of the ambient so we created a much more efficient background and now we actually look I think the the point of this is to show you that even though there is indeed a reflection of the light source because the light source is in a diffuse material we still have even light all over the jewelry even where it's not reflecting that little hot spot you see what I'm saying so you can actually use thie user reflector in close to your scrim to create spots of light but don't spread out here but over here still being lit up because of the entire diffusion you can use the speculator as a graphical element in your work okay so so that's what you mean by efficient lucy ann was yes I meant what I mean by efficient is that this wet tile is now glossy because of the water so it is a more efficient in giving me back a reflection of the light source before it was an inefficient surface because it was matt um had we had all the lights off we could still seeing a little bit of this but the ambience blowing it out but when we make it very efficient we do have a speculum reflection of that little hot spot right here and you can use that in food in product in still life all kinds of things to create a much more interesting look to your to your smooth like instead of having a big panel of smooth light a little hot spot here in their play with it okay delores is wondering if you had used sand blasted our krilic uh for under lighting products and are there issues of stands during shadows that are seen on the shoot yes all the time any time you have a stand close to the shoot you have the opportunity for a reflection or shadow you have the you have uh another great reason have booms is to get stuff in and out get your lights in and your stands out generally a boom is above the light so it's not a problem if you're seeing the boom in the reflection you're going to have to deal with that whether you put black felt on the bottom the blue the boom or what have you but if you're seeing the boom you're gonna have to deal with it and general if you're seeing the boom you probably have the boom in the wrong spot some of it get it get it where you can't see it as for the frosted acrylic I have both I have the regular it's not it's not plexiglass it's uh like lex lex lex lex election yeah alex san it's white lex sand because plexiglass is a very expensive and be scratches you just have to look at it and it scratches the lexx and takes much more of a beating and looks good here's a tip if you're lex and gets little scratches like dust scratches in it you want to get rid of the scratches for a shoot take a little bit of singer sewing machine oil on a soft rag and wipe it down with singer sewing machine oil is so viscous that'll actually fill in those tiny little cracks and because it's oil it won't evaporate for a couple of hours so you khun take a certain we're talking does scratches the little circles and lines it'll just get rid of him and you have a perfectly knew top that worked with plexiglass as well but singer sewing machine well cool um hey that little tip right there that was worth about twenty eight fifty twenty nine don't you have a six hundred dollar piece of plexiglass with scratches in it and I just told you how to fix it for eight books come on so a question from um where to go question from there it is malli photo is wondering if that's why you're dressed in all black to minimize reflection from yourself I'm dressed in all black because it's cool in the studio I wear all black because it's cool there are times when I'm dressed very very three times where you had to dress in black I think told you guys yesterday about a shoot we were doing beer portia and there's this little black line and the shooting it was me because I noticed when I moved to the other side to shoot the picture the line moves on I guess that's me but there are times and we also have black curtains hung up and we're shooting it there wasa number of years ago a cinema soma the cookware cinema williamson over cookware shot cover it was all these great big silver pots you know then they smell like pasta pasta was a beautiful cover and I walked because I'm a photographer first thing I look for us did he hide himself no hey didn't ous a matter of fact down in the bottom part on the corner right over here you saw a picture of a guy's leaning in with a red t shirt get out the shutter three of these in his hand honest to god they got right through editing and everywhere we wass picture of the guy in the shadows in the reflection way we have more questions coming in regarding jewellery but we also need to take a fifteen minute break so I was wondering if you wanted teo that's right after the break and we'll get right sure okay cool well we're gonna take a quick fifteen minute break and when we get back we'll discuss more jewelry topics good enjoy on the table top photography and donna the internet loves you so much I just want to share a little bit of what people are saying desert nana says I love how you teach by doing sculpting the light with incredible patients oh and um alberta photo says amen amen amen to what donna saying right now when you're talking about the education system and changing it and being a part of something cool here and rene's has done much respect man I totally agree with you about the archaic teaching methods and how much the internet has made it easy for us to learn long live creative five and some right over in the halls of stanford some guys like putting pins in