 Vikas Sodhani |
Shooting Jewelry with Nikon D70 + micro I recently purchased a Nikon D&) with 60mm micro lens. My setup is as follows: I have a light tent with three spots outside the tent. my ring is inside the tent statnding straight up. The camera is anchored on a tripod at an angled brids eye view so as to get botht the top of the ring and a piece of the bottom of the ring. Now the difficulty I am running into is that I cannot for the life of me get a clear picture where both the top and bottom are sharp. I could even deal with the lower portion of the ring being a bit out of focus, but for what Ive heard about this camera im really disappointed. I have tried almost everything: using different aperature and shutter settings, changing the angles/distance of the camera to the ring.. and so many other things. Has anyone had any luck using this camera and lens? I am getting better pictures with my Olympus 5050 + macro lens.
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Jon Close |
Yes, you will get greater depth of field with the Olympus 5050. The reasons are it has a much shorter focal length lens (7mm-23mm), and because it takes much less magnification to fill its tiny 5.3mm x 7.2mm image sensor. Set to f/4 the 5050 has the equivalent depth of field as f/32 on the D70.
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Andrew Laverghetta |
so to sum that up, use f/32. Look through your manual and find out where your depth-of-field preview button is and press it before you take your picture. The view will be a lot dimmer, but it will show you exactly what will be in focus and what won't. The camera is great, you just have to get used to using a digitalSLR.
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Vikas Sodhani |
Hi thanks so much for the information. I have tried using small aperatures (ie f32-f40) which helps in capturing a sharper depth of field, but I am still getting grainy pictures where the top of the ring is never in sharp focus. Like I was saying with my non-slr camera im getting sharper pictures maybe with a little less depth of field but nothing to make me switch to the Nikon D70 just yet. I have exhausted all possibilities that I can think of that may be causing the discrepencies. Would any of you have any other ideas of what may be going wrong. Would a different camera give me better results? Could you recommend a good camera for capturing rings with good resolution (my ideal pictures would be like the ones on www.bluenile.com and I do realize they have been photoshoped a great deal) example: http://www.bluenile.com/product_zoom.php?oid=4524&zoom=1&filter_id=0&set_shape=
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Andrew Laverghetta |
Can you post a picture from the D70 of jewelry or other macro things that you're not satisfied. I'm sure given the right setup and assuming the lens is Nikkor, the outcome should be a lot sharper than any non SLR. You're using ISO 200 right?
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Michael H. Cothran |
I'm a professional photographer, and shoot jewelry as part of my commercial work. I use virtually the same outfit. Believe me there is nothing wrong with your camera/lens, and another camera will do no better. You're dealing with the laws of optics here, not camera brands. I shoot rings quite a lot, and always shoot them at f22. The top of the ring should be tack sharp, but the "ring" part is always a little softer. That's perfectly acceptable. Your 60mm is a top drawer lens. I also own the 105 and the 200. They're as good it they get. Visit my website if you like (www.mhcphoto.net and go to the Jury Services to Image Gallery), and you can see some samples of my jewelry work - all done with Nikon cameras and Nikon Micro lenses. If you have any questions, write me. Michael H. Cothran
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Vikas Sodhani |
Thanks again for the responses. I am using the camera in manual focus mode and adjust the speed to what the meter tells me to on the camera (i have also tried a slew of apperature settings and speeds thinking that was my problem). my ISO is set to 200 and Ive also looked at the depth of field preview which is of course dark and a bit hard to judge from. for some reason I am still getting those uncrisp blurry pictures. Michael, I took a look at your pictures. They are very nice I must say. I am pasting a link to some of the pictures I took below. Michael on your ring pictures they are not tilted as I am taking mine. Could my titlting of the ring, which shows more of the bottom of the ring, be throwing my focus off even if I'm focusing manually? Could this be a light issue? Im using a light tent which may be letting less light in than I need? here are some pics that I took. these are some of my better ones. im also adding a picture from my olympus camera where I used exposure adjustment to adjust for the dull pictures I was getting. the photos are in this directory:
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Andrew Laverghetta |
Are you touching up the photos any with photoshop or a similar program? If you're using photoshop, the pictures would probably benefit from a little use of the "Unsharp Mask" found under Filters>Sharpen.
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