On this video, our colleagues Lee Morris and Patrick Hall from Fstoppers demonstrate 4 simple ways to shoot a wedding ring.
For the first tip – Morris just put the ring on a set of flowers and use a an off camera flash to light the scene (very basic but it works).
For a bit more drama you can use two flashes – one with a colored gel in the back and one in the front (with a diffuser), and using a bit of water with a Spitz bottle – again not super complex but the result looks great.
The third tip/idea is simply a long exposure shot with some interesting light painting and some cool surface (you can buy glossy background and beads in a store for just a few dollars and the result is really cool when lighting both using a small portable LED for a few seconds).
The final shot/tip is to place you ring on a laptop screen and change images – the screen acts as a colored light source (you will need a way to hold the ring in place and use a small LED light on the ring and use the laptop screen with a colored image for the background).
On this video Morris & Hall used the Nikon AF-S FX Micro-NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED (a great macro lens which lacks IS and requires you to be pretty close to the ring but gives you quite a wide image compared to longer macro lenses, especially on a full frame camera).
We have looked at product photography in the past many times including another video by Morris & Hall entitled “Simple and Inexpensive: a Great Way to Shoot Wedding Rings” as well “working with an inexpensive lighting setup for shooting a wedding ring“, shooting “jewellery photography for catalogs” and and look at “shooting a Rolex Timepiece“.
If you are interested in macro photography – check out our extensive macro photography section.