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Macro Product Photography: Keeping it Simple
By Irakly Shanidze
Everybody in the trade knows that shooting jewelry can be a real headache. A photographer has to deal with several technical
problems at the same time: shallow depth of field due to high levels of magnification, parasitic reflection on polished surfaces,
color fidelity, not to mention such basic things as motion blur and perspective distortion. If you think that this is it, hold
your breath. After dealing with all technical hurdles he has to come up with a picture, which does not look as thousands of
jewelry shots out there, and this is not an easy task.
In a conceptual Cartier photo commissioned by a local jewelry retailer the only problem that I did not have to deal with was
color fidelity. The idea for the shot was to represent Cartier brand as a whole, not to sell a particular watch, or a ring. It
meant that whatever was on the photo should not be easily identifiable as a certain piece from a retail showcase, but transcend
an iconic image, which everybody perceives as an indispensable part of a high-life stereotype.
SUBJECT MATTER
Among a few dozen of Cartier articles I chose a Trinity ring due to its uniqueness as well as simultaneous intricacy and
simplicity. Another reason was that it had an engraved logo, which gave me a possibility to explore it with lighting. The ring
was affixed to a gold-plated lipstick barrel, which incidentally happened to be of a suitable diameter.
As I found a hard way a long time ago, it is much easier to prevent fingerprints from landing on polished surfaces than to retouch
them during a post-production stage. That's why these days I always wear lint-free white gloves while working with jewelry, and
this shoot was no exception.
LIGHTING
I am not a huge fan of elaborate lighting setups. In my studio work I prefer to use the minimal number of lighting equipment
that is possible without sacrificing convenience. This shot was no exception. The lipstick/ring combo was placed on a shooting
table with white opaque acrylic surface. The main light was provided by a Broncolor Minipuls C80 monolight with a P70 standard
reflector fitted with a 20 honeycomb grid mounted vertically below the table.
A fool-proof way to convey sense of wealth is to limit colors used in the photo to those universally associated with gold. That
is why I decided to stack amber and yellow gels above the grid. Since shooting at the widest aperture available was the intention,
I added two two-stop neutral density filters to the stack. It gave me an exposure value of f/5.6 at ISO100 at the lowest power
output setting. I shot the picture with Contax 645 4/120 APO-Makro-Planar, which could be opened up to f/4, but bellows required
one-stop exposure correction, therefore amount of light provided by the monolight was correct.
Naturally, without any fill from above, the top of the picture would drown in complete darkness. To remedy that I used a white
cardboard reflector held by a clamp connected to a Bogen Magic Arm. The Magic Arm was suspended from the upper table crossbar in
order to prevent it from appearing in a highly reflective surface of the lipstick barrel.
SHOOTING TECHNIQUE
Looking through a viewfinder I realized that slightly elevated vantage point was the most visually pleasing, but it created a
problem of converging verticals. To make them parallel again I used Contax auto-bellows that have all movements found in
large-format monorail cameras. The bellows provided vertical shift that took care of keystoning and vertical tilt, which enabled
selective focusing on the logo.
The camera was mounted on a Gitzo Studex G500 tripod with a Gitzo 1377G ballhead. This combo is very heavy and virtually free
of vibration, which makes it perfect for macro photography in a studio. I have the tripod standing on a dolly. It is very
convenient for initial framing and coarse focusing. After it is all done, the dolly is locked and fine adjustments are performed
by the bellows.
Even though most of the picture is out of focus, critical sharpness on the logo was very important. In order to prevent any hint
of a motion blur, the exposure was made via a cable release after locking up a mirror in the camera body. Perhaps the mirror
lock-up was an overkill in this particular instance, but it is so easily done on Contax 645 that not using this precaution when
shooting macro seems to be rather foolish.
The image was captured digitally with Kodak DCS ProBack 645c 16MP back and opened in Adobe RAW converter. It did not require any
manipulation except minor contrast adjustment. The whole shoot including printing an 8.5x8.5" proof and burning a CD for a
client took less than an hour, and the longest part of it was to come up with the lipstick idea and making it work.
Irakly Shanidze Bio
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