• Panasonic Cameras

  Shooting Jewelry on a Varicam

  Posted by Tom Lietz on January 19, 2006 at 2:30 pm

  I’ll be shooting some different kinds of jewelry with our Varicam for the first time in a few weeks, and want to get it right. Does anyone on the forum have any experience they’d like to share?

  I’m especially curious regarding your experiences with

  lenses (Macro on an ENG? Probe?)
  under & overcranking
  lighting (diffused fill vs. focused “sparkle” lights for gemstones)
  motion & grip (simple motorized turntables? positioning the object?)

  …and of course anything else you might care to offer.

  Thanks for your time.

  Tom Lietz

  Tom Lietz replied 20 years, 4 months ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Tony

  January 19, 2006 at 4:36 pm

  Tom,

  None of what you mentioned for a product shot involving jewelry is unique to the varicam as the concepts apply to any shooting format.

  It is all about the lighting to make the product “sparkle”. Various options include a soft box overhead, or using dedo lights to concentrate on specific pieces or area of jewelry. Rim lighting would be recommended to highlight the jewelry as it rotates on a tabletop. I have even used lighting from below the table through a piece of diffused plexiglass in the past.

  Using a “lazy susan” – rotating turntable is a great ideas along with a dolly for the camera to create motion from opposite directions.

  One lens I use for small tabletop products is a snorkel lens but I found the image quality to be a bit soft but ok and you have to deal with the light loss. Using a jib or dolly is ideal for use with a snorkel and/or probe lens.
  If you use either confirm the lens is rated for HD.

  You get focus falloff with the snorkel/probe lens which is ideal for isolating a specific item.

  Tony Salgado
• 

  Gary Adcock

  January 19, 2006 at 10:13 pm

  [tony salgado] “Using a “lazy susan” – rotating turntable is a great ideas along with a dolly for the camera to create motion from opposite directions.”

  Tony
  I use a Potters wheel for this – they are made to take more weight and because of that they are more stabe that a standard lazy susan.

  the small manual ones can be had for about $100 us.

  Gary Adcock
  Studio37
  HD and Film Consultation
  Chicago, IL USA
• 

  Tony

  January 19, 2006 at 11:12 pm

  Gary,

  thanks for the tip.

  Tony
• 

  Drew

  January 20, 2006 at 1:48 pm

  Im sure i’m stating the obvious, but I like to light through the lens when using HD. If you have the luxury of a grip have them move the light accordingly till you achieve max sparkle [Can’t help but think of Mr. Sparkle from Simpsons]. Also if you can get a Diva kit hung overhead that’ll even the top light…as long as you shoot within the plane. Jewlery shadows are ugly IMOP. If you’re going to ramp/over-under crank know your stop difference. You can set the camera to shoot eshutter of 1/100 [there’s debate on this, but this is what works for me], and ramp all day. The camera with adjust accordingly. If you want to really pop the color, light with a shutter of at least 90 in mind. It may mash a bit of the movement, but contrast in detail isn’t a bad thing.

  Hope that wasn’t redundant.

  Mal: If anyone gets nosy, just, you know… shoot ’em.

  Zoe: Shoot ’em?

  Mal: Politely
• 

  Tom Lietz

  January 20, 2006 at 4:46 pm

  Thanks for the advice, everyone.

  As a side note, we’re considering also placing a model on a larger turntable wearing some of the jewelry for a few shots. If you’ll forgive a slightly offtopic question, I don’t suppose anyone has had good experiences with large-scale manual turntables that they’d care to share?

  appreciate it,
  Tom

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