bright light or slow shutter speed

<p>Hi<br>

I am shooting now rings with diamonds,<br>

is it better to use bright light with a shutter speed of 1/50 sec<br>

or more dim light with a shutter speed of 1/4 sec about<br>

will any of the above options give me better quality, or it is no difference in the quality?<br>

Thanks a lot in advance</p>

<p>If you're using film, slow speeds may result in reciprocity failure. If you're using digital very slow shutter speeds result in heat build up on the sensor and introduce noise which can diminish the overall contrast and clarity of the image. Your speeds are ok though. I am assuming you are using a tripod for your shooting....if not, don't expect razor sharp images.</p>

<p>I did jewelry photography many years ago. Best results were with a macro-type ring flash and carefully controlled DoF. You want to emphasize the cooler end of the spectrum for highest sparkle effect. Avoid incandescent light sources, except bright halogens like they have in jewelry stores. Make sure the metal is well polished and clean, as scratches will show up clearly in your photos. Be prepared to deal with specular reflections. You don't want them to disappear completely, because they give shape to the surfaces, but you don't want them to overpower the image either. You can try a flash off a closely positioned reflector. Use a background that is absolutely non-reflective. Good luck.</p>

<p>Brighter light is almost always easier to deal with since it gives you both higher shutter speeds to eliminate any problems with camera shake and smaller f-stops to give more depth of field. There may be situations where you want to throw the background out of focus, but in closeup photography that's very easy even at small f-stops since you have very little depth of field to start with. As David says, you should be using flash rather than constant light, so that makes shutter speed mostly irrelevant.</p>

You may also want to use a good quality

circular polarizar to avoid undesirable

reflections from diamond surfaces.

<p>Hi<br>

If the only thing you do is to change the brightness of the light I doubt you will see any difference at all between the two examples you mention as long as you use a tripod for your camera. Handheld you will probably do better with 1/50 sec since it is harder to hold the camera still for as long as 1/4 sec.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>