taking photos of Christmas ornaments?

Question

My mom has a huge amount of antique ornaments from my grandmother. I would like to photograph these ornaments, then have my mom give descriptions of them.
What would be the best way to photograph these ornaments?
What is a good setting? Just a black sheet or paper? Something else to just sit the ornament on? to snap a photo?
What is some good software, to put a photo in. Then add some text? I was thinking genology software. But something must be better?
thanks for any help

Answer 1

You can make your own rolled background, just take a piece of paper, and roll it into a L shape kind of backdrop.
Then you can set your camera on macro to get the best focus with a close up view.
Black or white sheet of paper is good.
Photoshop is pretty good for adding text, Paintshop is good too. Any free online free photo software is good too.

aj

Answer 2

I've taken some amazing pictures of ornaments right where they are supposed to be: on the tree, with a zoom. Sure use diffused light if u wish, but i used a normal flash and the effect I got was one of dark backgrounds with a highlighted ornament; thereby highlighting the ornament all the more. Parts of the tree showed up but I liked that since it was very Christmas y.

As far as software, everyone on here seems to like Adobe Photoshop. At least from what I read in other Q's.

And have a Merry Xmas too!

Answer 3

The pictures in this set might give you some ideas for fake studio set-ups. Some of the objects are about the same size as Christmas ornaments.

Some soft-lights as suggested by mere_mortal would be nice, but probably not needed for your purposes.

Here's my generic "jewelery photos" answer that will help you with macro.

For objects photographed from a distance of 3-4 feet, absolutely any digital camera and any "digital photographer" can get a suitable image. Don't forget that the largest picture eBay will display (unless you are hosting your own images) is 800 x 800 pixels or less than 1 megapixel. For jewelry or other small items, you have to learn macro technique. You can also do this with almost any digital camera, but here's an article that I wrote about jewelry in specific. I am sure that you will find it helpful.

The best way to take photos of jewelry for a web site is with a digital SLR and a macro lens. If you are not going to go with a DSLR, almost any point and shoot with a macro mode will serve you well. The thing is, I feel that you need to use the flash to force the aperture to close while still having enough light for an exposure. Many here will tell you different, but follow this advice and see what you think.

Use your macro setting and experiment. Let's say you have a point and shoot camera with macro and a flash on the camera. You might have to go to a manual mode to do this, but...

Put your item on a nice background surface. I like to just put it in a ring box or on some velour. Zoom out at least half-way so that you will be working about a foot away from the ring. Be sure that you get focus confirmation. Shoot a picture USING flash. Check the LCD for the result. If you have overexposed the item, use the EV adjustment to reduce the exposure. For small items, I often find that I need to reduce the exposure by about 1.0 EV. (That's -1.0 EV.) It is better to have the item properly exposed and the background underexposed, so just worry about the jewelry for now. Using a deliberate underexposure will cure the "too shiny" appearance of the stones and metal.

If you know how, you can use either full manual exposure or just Aperture Priority and choose a smaller aperture (larger number) to make the ring show up in better focus.

If you have a DSLR, post your question again stating the kind of camera that you have and the lens that you are using and we will give more details.

If you are doing any image processing at all, such with Photoshop or it's cousins, you can crop the image to 800 pixels by 800 pixels and use Supersize images on eBay. I always use the Picture Pack when I am selling anything of any value.

Check out http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/heartring.jpg which I did a while ago using a Nikon Coolpix 5400 exactly as described above. I do NOT think this is acceptable, but we decided not to sell the ring anyhow, so I didn't bother to do a better job. It's still better than some I've seen. I don't keep old photos of sold items around, so I don't have much to show you, but at least you know that it's possible to get an acceptable result even without spending huge dollars on your equipment.

The key things to remember are:
-Macro setting
-Zoom out to get about a foot away from your subject
-Use flash
-Try different EV settings and expect that you will end up with a negative EV setting, such as -1.0 EV.

I happen to have some photos from old auctions on an FTP site. I think that these were all taken with a 3 MP Nikon Coolpix 885.

http://members.aol.com/swf08302/carvina.jpg
http://members.aol.com/swf08302/skullfront.jpg
http://members.aol.com/swf08302/konkontu.jpg
(The patch is about 4 inches long.)

Here are a couple of coin photos done exactly as described, but using a D200:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/1887954874/

I did these with my Nikon Coolpix 4600, just to show you what a really inexpensive camera can do. It's a 4 MP camera that I paid about $150 for a couple of years ago.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/577501964/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/577501976/

Here are a couple more auction photos done as described, using a 60 mm macro lens on a DSLR:

800 x 800 http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/yorkie01.jpg
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/1296244675/ (light box)
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/1296276707/ (light box)
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/412244168/ (light box)
800 x 800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/7189769@N04/412244164/

I finally posted that auction back in July: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:11&item=200126973404

If you are interested in a full description of an SLR set-up, post a new question and ask specifically for that information. I'm gathering from the nature of your question that you might be in the point and shoot market.

Answer 4

A light tent is definitely a good idea. Soft diffuse lighting to minimize reflections. Maybe you can hang them with a piece of thread so they look as though they are floating in space.

If the ornaments are highly reflective you may want to use a short telephoto or zoom (100mm, 105mm) to minimize any reflection of you and the camera in the ornament. You'll definitely want a tripod and you'll have to experiment with different angles to further minimize reflections of your gear.

Answer 5

I would get yourself one of those mini product studios from Wal-Mart.

Diffused light is the key with real sparkly objects.