Wedding Blog

First of all, I’d like to disclaimer that I’m not a photographer, nor do I play one on TV. I’m just your average girl with an average digital camera. I did spend about an hour the other night taking pictures of my ring and have figured out a few techinques that seem to work better than some others, which I’ll share here.

Here’s my camera:

It’s the Canon PowerShot A400 3.2 megapixel, with a 2.2x optical zoom. The only difference is, mine has a purply blue face instead of silver. I could go into a lot of detail on our camera selection process, but I’ll just sum it up by saying “it was cheap ($130-ish) and Mr. Blueberry chose it.”

When I took the e-ring photos the other night it was about 10pm, and dark out–so there was no natural light available. I tried a few different combinations but found that I got the best photos when the only light source was indirect, and fairly close.

It’s common knowledge that diamonds don’t sparkle with color under bright direct light (whereas CZ’s do–good way to tell them apart), so I was trying to capture my diamond’s sparkle. That didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped; so any tips in that area would be appreciated. In my experience, capturing the sparkle seems to be rather hit-or-miss. When the ring was positioned in a way that *I* could see it sparkling, the camera wouldn’t catch it–all has to do with point-of-view, I suppose.

Anyway, the secret to getting an in focus photo of your e-ring is to use your camera’s “macro” setting. On my camera I can switch between macro and…I dunno, regular?…with the push of one button, which has a little flower image. If I understand it correctly, the macro setting allows you to focus on something close up, rather than having to use your zoom.

Speaking of which, if your camera doesn’t have a macro setting but does have a good zoom (and you have a steady hand), you should be able to take a pretty clear picture by moving a further distance (maybe 3 feet?) from your ring and zooming in on it.

Another key in getting a clear picture of something up close is your camera’s shutter speed. Mine only has autofocus when I use the flash, so if I want to get a clear photo without using the flash I have to go into my camera’s settings and turn something called the “ISO” up to 400 (the highest level). I don’t know why this works, don’t ask me!!!

I also had some lighting issues–photos becoming washed out, etc. I don’t have photoshop or anything to use to lighten or darken photos after I’ve taken them, so the ones in my previous entry were all straight from the camera (though I did use my camera’s sepia feature). Anyway, so to control the brightness I used the different settings on my table lamp, as well as playing around with distance from the lamp, flash/no flash, etc. I don’t like my camera’s flash–it seems to wash everything out, but it makes a cool effect to take a photo using the flash in an otherwise totally-darkened room. Not exactly good photography, but it was cool looking! Most of the photos were taken without using my camera’s flash; this allowed me to capture the ring’s facets. However, the band looked shinier when I used the flash.

I haven’t tried taking any pics of my ring outside but I think it would produce some interesting results–especially in shadow, away from the sun’s direct light. Alas it’s only 30* out right now so I’m not going to be trying it any time soon, but I’d be interested to hear others’ experiences.

Like I said above, I’m not a photographer! I was just messing around w/ my camera and discovered a few things. So some of my “tips” may work only in my situation, or with my camera, etc. Does anyone else have tips on e-ring photography to share?