Wedding Ring

I'm in a bit of a hurry, but did want to mention something about color casts. The bottom one is the best in that it DOESN'T have some odd color cast. These are all the same ring, yet in each one they look to be different metals. Is it white gold? Platinum? When photographing jewelry, you really have to make sure there are no odd colors being reflected on the surface. The reddish cast to the first one makes it seem as if it's not even a quality metal. Also, that blue fuzzy surface does nothing for the ring. If you want the ring to stand up, find something made of clear plastic. When selling on eBay, the buyer isn't going to say "oooo... look at that shallow depth of field", he's going to say, "damn... what are they hiding with that blur?"

The angles of the reflected light are kinda rough too. Being as a ring is reflective, round, and flat at the same time it's going to be tough to keep the direct reflections out of the camera plane. When they are they blow out to nothing and get lost on the background. Maybe a clear plastic holder to position the ring, sitting on a clear plastic surface. Black seamless behind and below the shooting surface. Lights diffused from the top to give some specular highlights to the gem stones, and a reflector in front and below the shooting surface to fill from a lower angle than the camera plane. Might want to bracket and HDR also if you still get blow outs.

Thanks John.  I was trying very hard to control the specular highlights with the lighting I was using, and I think I did OK considering that light is reflecting off of the ring in about a thousand directions.  But you are right, as Ed is, the lighting technique needs to be completely different than what I attempted in order to completely take control of this image.  Thanks for the suggestions.

I'll post more when I get a chance, hopefully later today...

Travis