First Product Shoot

[law4mary]

I did a product shoot for a friend of mine of the jewelry she makes so she can put them up on her web page (http://Creativelycrafty.ShopHandmade.com). I would like a general critique as to lighting and composition. For lighting I had two non-strobe fixed lights on either side and the set up was in front of well lit window. I used a longer exposure as opposed to the speed light because even with a diffuser it was way too bright.

From My Photography

Model: NIKON D60
ISO: 100
Exposure: 0.6 sec
Aperture: 13.0
Focal Length: 55mm
Flash Used: No

Thanks for your guidance.

[teedlepeep]

I like your lighting and your composition. But, on my screen the shot looks fuzzy instead of being in super sharp focus to emphasize the details on the bead work.

[law4mary]

I did notice a little trouble with focusing - I don't know if it is my eyes or my camera. Some of the other shots were more in focus. Would greater depth of field help this shot (or ones like it)? I was at f/13 - was that enough?

[Alan Willis]

It seems to me that f13 @ 55mm should have been enough dof, I'd think, even considering the 1.5x for the D60, but more wouldn't hurt. Does the D60 have a DOF preview? I don't recall.

I wonder if you selected a particular focal point (the D60 has 3, no? memory could be wrong on that) or if you let the camera select it. If you did not select a particular focal point, I'd recommend doing that. It looks -- to me -- as if the camera may have selected a bead further to the left of the frame, but I can't really tell for sure.

[Trader]

The soft focus does bother me also. I would go up to at least f/16.0. Another thing, if the reason for taking this picture is to sell the jewelry then I would set up the shot so we can see the entire bracelet and parts are not hidden behind the prop. Hope that helps.

[kencaleno]

I would go to F 18 when working this close: Regards, Ken

[AlphaBjerke]

I thought the focus was soft too, but then wondered if it wasn't just something about the white beads with the writing on them--the others look sharper.

[law4mary]

No, there is no DOF preview on the D60 and I was auto focusing on some of them and this might have been one of them so it likely focused not on the center but to the side which explains why the branch is sharper. I will have to try this again with more DOF and see if it doesn't show a lot more, including the clasp. So what I am taking away from this is that the composition is good (except I need to show the clasp as well) and the lighting is good too, but that I need to work on more DOF and sharper focus.