How to Photograph Gemstones
I find photographing loose gemstones to be an art form I may never fully conquer but I wanted to share a few tips I’ve learned over the years. My goal is not really to create a work of art but rather to produce an accurate representation of the gemstone. Your lighting setup is by far more important than your camera setup but a few features on your camera are essential. A camera with manual mode that allows you to choose a custom white balance in Kelvin is a must as well as a high quality macro lens. I like the Nikkor 105mm macro lens so that I’m far enough from the gemstone to use my lighting setup. With this lens you can get about 6-8 inches away from the gem which allows for enough room to move your lights around.
I use three different lighting setups depending on what type of stone I’m shooting. I like to use a LED ring light for some gems and usually white balance at approximately 6700 Kelvin. Even with proper white balancing though the LED lights will overemphasize the blue in some gems. The LED setup works pretty well for Colombian emeralds though. The second setup I use includes a small light tent and two fluorescent flood light that are white balanced at 5600 Kelvin. For gemstones mounted in jewelry I use a light on each side of the tent but if I’m shooting cabochons I use only one. Loose gemstones look better using the two flood lights without the tent.
One mistake is to try to shoot gemstone pictures at the highest aperture setting. Often a really high depth of field will bring out too many details from the back of the gem and make it look much worse than it does in person. Try experimenting with a lower f-stop like f-11 or f-16 and see how it looks. Most of the time you will want to focus on the edge of the gemstone. If you are shooting product photos a white or gray background is always best to accurately represent the color of the gemstone you are selling.