ADVICE: How to Take Shots of Beads for Website?

[DigitalCamerasAustralia]

Hello everyone!

In a couple of days I have to take some shots of beads for a large bead making company for their website. I want them to be as beautiful as possible.

Does anyone have any tips for composition, etc.? Has anyone seen any good shots of beads or jewelry lately that might help me out?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Samanax]

Have you done product shots before?

Do you have a light box or light tent?

What about studio lighting?

What kind of equipment will you be using?

[jdepould]

Ideally you'd want a scrim at about a 45 degree angle, with the angle opening out toward the camera. Then you'd put your light just behind the scrim. This will help you avoid specular highlights, and give you some nice looking shadows.

As far as making your own scrim, you really just need a sheet of Rolux on a frame. Most lighting supply shops should have what you need.

[AnnetteJ]

Try searching the web for bead magazines or bead shops and looking at the adverts and pix of people's beadwork for ideas.

[Robb]

Googling for some bead stores returns a few places with many styles of bead photos. Looks like some of these on plain black backgrounds aren't very interesting but some of the tightly cropped, and organized thumbnail pictures of beads are pretty good.

Example photo of the tightly cropped:
http://www.beadsmosaic.com/images/beads_collage.jpg

Example Bead Stores Online:

• http://www.shipwreckbeads.com/
• http://www.artbeads.com/
• http://www.beadking.com/index.php

Good luck. Post what you come up with!

[Mr Guy]

Depending on how large and transparent they are, you probably want a very large light source (relative to their size) to give the most even shine you can.

You almost definitely want a light tent, and you probably want at least three or four colors to match the beads or deliberately contrast the beads as much as possible. My thought would be you want a baseline of either white, black, and/or whatever their dominant color is on their website, and then a complimentary color for special uses.