Digital Photo Set Up for Jewelry

Jewelry Discussion
21

I too would love to have a digital camera,However I will wait
until they are standard with a USB port attachment.I do not like
to buy high tech only to have it obsolete buy the time I get it
home.I am still happy scanning my 46 inch 35mm prints at 200dpi
and converting to jpeg for web sites and such.The big concern is
quality and a quick down load.If you have a scanner you have a
good start at a digital photo set up.I use a visioneer 6100.I
also like to make a 8 * 10 from my 46 print on the epson photo
quality printer. If one cares to see my results you can go here
to check one image from a 35mm print ,these earrings are apox 1
inch top to
bottom.http://www.freeyellow.com/members7/mdevlin61/jhoops.jpg_Mi

chael

22

Hi all, :slight_smile:

It’s been very interesting to read all the comments on jewelry
photography and seeing a variety of opinions on the various
cameras available including our own Gesswein Image System (aka
Picture.Perfect). Just to be clear, our system is more than a
camera. It includes a light box, mounting stands for your
jewelry, external video capture card, computer software, and of
course the camera.

Honestly we have sold one heck of a lot of Gesswein Image
Systems. I think the primary reason is that it takes great
photos of jewelry and takes out all the guesswork on camera
type, settings, lighting, mounting, etc. For the average
jeweler who has fairly limited space and no time, interest or
inclination to study digital photography, our system is ideal.
It simply makes it easy to take great quality pictures of your
jewelry immediately with a very short learning curve.

For those who argue that the image quality is not great, well,
certainly everyone is entitled to their opinion. But to form
your own opinion, you can send for our free brochure, visit
Marc’s website, or if you want to see what the system can do
with your own jewelry - come to a trade show this year (JA, MJSA
and many others). We will have the system set up and running.
We invite you to bring pieces of your jewelry so we can take
pictures of them there for you. We’ll print them out and you
can take them home with you. Or we can email them to you also.
(If you plan to be in the Bridgeport CT area sometime, call our
office and we can demonstrate the system to you here as well.)

I have visited many customer’s stores, shops and offices. What
always interested me was the amount of photography equipment
they had stashed under tables and in closets. These were the
rather expensive remnants of previous attempts at doing their
own in-house photography prior to their purchase of our Gesswein
Image System. Personally, I think taking good quality pictures
of jewelry is not that easy. There is more to it than just the
brand of camera; there are lighting issues that can vary
tremendously depending on the piece of jewelry being
photographed, mounting, transferring the image to the computer,
not to mention camera settings, etc. etc.

Of course there are people with photography or graphic arts
backgrounds who can take better pictures than our system. We
don’t say our images are better than a professional or a
talented amateur photographer might take. But I would venture
to say the majority of us would welcome a photography system
that takes out the guesswork and most of the variables. In fact
I know this is true based on our sales alone.

Best Regards,
Elaine Corwin

23

Walter and Michelle, It will capture images one at a time at
whatever magnification you choose directly to your comp screen. I
do not own one as I have no need for it, I just saw the quality
of pictures it produced and figured I would pass it on to the
group. Maybe I should get one just for the sakes of a new toy:-)
Best Regards. Neil George

24

For those of you who need digitized pictures and still want
slides and prints and use a 35mm SLR. Check out Seattle
Filmworks. I have been using them for about 2 years and they will
develop, make slides, print and burn a photo CD or floppy disk
either PC or Mac format and give you a new roll of film all for
about $20.00 a roll for 20 exposure film. I now get slides for
juried shows. Prints for my scrap book and CD for the computer.
The CD comes in 3 different resolutions all on the same disk, so
you have a choice. Check it out at www.filmworks.com . Place
disclaimer HERE. For those who are not quite ready to go digital.
Frank

25

Hi everybody. I have been lurking for quite a bit and need to
say something here. We are all very proud of our computers etc
etc but who owns an apple vrs. who has a pc is a dredfully boring
discussion. We are all able to connect a digital camera and I
think that is the end of discussion. That being said, let me tell
you about my computer! No, no, no. Bad joke. I have been using a
digital camera for about a year now. Built my web page and that
of a half dozen others with it. Here is what is important: The
camera must focus at the distance needed for the job. That is the
entirety of the “what should I buy” question. I picked up mine on
auction- a slightly better than mid-price range one and it has
performed flawlessly. I have added close up filters which are
available at almost any good sized photo supply store. So maybe
just buy the thing and use it, since my one prerequisite of focal
length is not that important either. Forget usb, printers,
scanners. We do not care about paper anymore, do we? USB only
means a few seconds saved in the download of the data from the
camera. Do you really need a professional presentation on paper?
If so put your data on a cd and send it off to kodak for
processing. I have taken photos professionally and the truckload
of equipment needed to produce good quality from film makes
digital a no brainer, especially if the subject is jewelry. You
will know, literaly within seconds, if the background is right or
the lighting complimentory and be able to make the needed changes
in real time, not when they come back and you have paid your $$$
for the prints. If you have no photo gear at all spend another
$100-$200 for a decent tripod and a shadow box and you are in
business!-L

26

I’ve been doing this for a while but the disc was lousy did
you order s certain resolution because the one time I ordered a
disc, the resolution was very poor. My computer is a Mac do I
need to give SFW special to get decent resolution??
Michele Cooling

27

Elaine, please send to me one of the brochures mentioned in the
Orchid article regaarding your Picture Perfect Image System.
Many thanks…Paul Hartstein

                                    4210 Callifornia Ave.,
                                     Long Beach, CA  90807

PS…Appreciate your contributions to the Orchid site…
always helpful info, consistant with the best of efforts by the
many talents participating.

28

I got a hold of the Mattel Microscope thing and at the lowest
power 10X it would not pick up a good image of a ring. It would
project a good image of a small part of the ring. At the 60X
power it showed the surface texture of a tiny part of the ring,
or at 200X a dust mite and his family trekking across a tiny
part of the surface of the ring. (actually I was afraid to look
at the 200x for fear of seeing a dust mite. I prefer to deny the
presence of dust mites). It can’t get far enough away from a
piece of jewelry to show what it is. I think it would work if it had a lower power than
10X but it doesn’t. NET

29

Frank and all: I forgot to add PhotoCD from Kodak to the digital
imaging solution though I emailed Cathy offline about that. This
is a really cost effective way to go and the scans are excellent.
Its been several years since I’ve done PhotoCD; I’ve used them
instead of costly color seperations for some clients who are
“cheap.” The only drawback to be aware of is that PhotoCD (at
least a few years ago…) tends to make your photos ever so
slightly greenish tinted. This may not be noticeble on the
average person’s PC, but my Mac is calibrated for use in
pre-press work and its very noticeable to me and I always correct
for it. This is easy to do if you have photoshop or an image
editing program that allows for color balance. PhotoCD is a great
way to go if you keep that in mind…Dave

Kickass Websites for the Corporate World http://www.kickassdesign.com
Crystalguy Art Jewelry http://www.crystalguy.com

30

I bought the Matel toy, and that’s exactly what it is. It has
no depth of field, and no resolution to speak of. It appears to
be a way for Intel to get rid of all its really old camera chips.
It is a great kids toy and will let them look at 200x
magnification of a cockroach, but for jewelry it is useless.
I’ll take $70 for it, plugged in once for 10 minutes.

The good news is that I bought the Nikon CoolPix 950 and it is
fantastic. Great resolution, macro focus to about 2cm, will take
hundreds of pictures on a 48Mg card for an extra $150 which is
well worth the extra investment. It comes with several ways to
download the pictures, the best being a PCMCIA slot adapter ($14
extra). If you have a laptop, plug the memory card into the
PCMCIA card and plug both into the laptop. The computer sees
them as an extra hard drive with all the picture in folders. It
also comes with a cord to plug into the normal D-type serial
slot, and downloads the files from there. The only other
addition I bought was an extra battery pack that clips on your
belt for shooting without carrying batteries. Sams has a
battery charger with 8-AA nicad batteries for about $19 that I
bought for shooting on road trips.

I have seen lots of comments about the ‘extra features’ on the
Nikon that are hard to understand. This is really a no-brainer.
It comes with a book that explains most of the features, and a
CDRom that explains the rest in detail. It is truly an amazing
camera for the price. I used to be a professional photographer
(put my self thru college working part time shooting weddings)
and would feel completly safe shooting anything with this camera.
It has macro focus for jewlry, normal focus for portraits,
infinity focus for landscapes and autofocus, self timer, auto-off
when not in use, can connect to the TV for playback of the
images, or the VCR for recording of the images, optical and
digital zoom, 4 resolutions for pictures (Hi which is
uncompressed tiff , Fine which is jpg, Normal and Basic which
are compressed jpg. An 8 Mg card that comes with the camera will
take one shot in Hi mode, 8 shots in Fine mode, 16 shots in
Normal mode and 200 shots in Basic mode. It can be color
balanced, shoot multiple continous shots, has flash, it really
has too many features to be listed here. I bought mine at Wolf
Camera Stores, national chain, for $899 and also bought a $99,
3-year extended warranty, so the camera is good for 4 years
without any charges to get it fxed if it needs it. If you want to
stick with the old way, take a picture with a 35mm, get it
developed for $$, scan it in and put it on a floppy. While you
are doing all this, waiting for your film to be developed and
then finding out that the picture isnt exactly what you want, I
can take thousands of pictures, see them instantly, color correct
them if needed in Microsoft “Picture It” ($54 with a $20 rebate)
which is better than Photo Shop ($649) for the price, and have
them on my Web page.

If you want any more info, feel free to email me off line and/or
I can send you samples of the pictures or the info file that
comes with the camera to be read in Acrobat.

-randy
randysmi@microsoft.com
I work at Microsoft so am partial to “Picture It”.

31

Michele, Yes you should check the box in the order form that says
Mac. Also make sure you have an up to date order form ( if you
use one of the older forms it requests only one resolution) call
SFW and get a new order form. The three resolution disks are
only about 6 months old. Frank

32

Dave: I just had some professional photos taken for an ad. The
photographer took the photos on a large format camera.
(tansparancies were about 3" square) He then had them High
density scanned onto a cd for me ( the cd has 8 photos and is
full) I then took them to a friend who does graphic art and
built my ad ( check out the 2000 issue of Designer Jewelry
Showcase) colors were right on and resolution was amazing. The
right tool for the job, … I say. New tech combined with old
tech and professional skills can’t be beat. Frank

33

Hi to all. A couple of comments/observations. We have a couple
of older Macs and a 400 MHz G-3. We also have a Nikon Coolpix
950 (that enough good cannot be said about).

We purchased a USB Compact Flash card reader (~$40.00) as the
input devise to the G-3 and use the Serial cable (included with
the Nikon) to download to the older Macs.

Downloading 8 MBs of images through the card reader takes I’d
guess, a few seconds at most. The Serial method takes, shall we
say… a b i t l o n g e r…

The macro ability (2 cm) of the Nikon is wonderful, and coupled
with the White Balance setting (which allows one to compensate
for a very wide variety of lighting/color temperatures) one can
capture very fine detail and accurate color.

With the camera’s resolution set to “Normal” and in the macro
range; you will very likely see things in your work you might
rather not, when viewed on the computer monitor or printed out.

The bundled software is not comparable to Photoshop or Live
Picture, but very simple to use.

Only downside about the Nikon (price is dropping) for us was a
bit of a learning curve, which one might expect from a very
small but sophisticated package.

Aloha
Thor

34

I would have to agree with Frank, about having your work
professionally shot for ads. I am most likely going to stir up
another debate with this next statement. In my opinion you
cannot beat negatives for print ads and also for web sites. We
all cannot be professional at everything so let the professional
do what they do.

As of my fellow jewelers and web site artist knows I have a
problem with artist spreading their time too thin. I think back
to my father who was a jeweler, he only had one yellow page ad to
do (not 4) he did not have to learn the computer and then learn
digital cameras and then learn website design and then spend time
updating and playing on the net. He spent his time working on
the bench and with customers, I guess that’s why he was so
productive and turned out such awesome work.

I realize professionals are expensive but look at the true value
of your lost bench time Vs the quality of photos that the
professional takes. I say your pictures look better,which makes
your ads and site look better, which makes your sales better, and
you have the inventory to sell because you spent time on the
bench, which increases your bottom line, that pays for the
professional.

Thats it I now will step down from my soap box.

Have a great year everyone.

Bill Wismar
wismargallery.com

35

Sweet helloes to all. Orchid is such a giving forum with so many
knowledgeable minds. I want to thank all of those individuals
that offered their response to my posting about digital cameras.
I made my purchase today. I thought the Nikon Coolpix 950 would
fit my needs the best so I went with that. Also I ordered
Charles Lewton-Brain`s book & video about small scale
photography