Ring 2

We set a sheet of white foam core on two sawhorses to serve as the shooting table. A Medium Starlite Kit was placed behind the table.

A small slit was cut in the foam core, then the ring was gently pressed into the slit. This supported the ring in an upright position.

This image shows the angle of the soft box in relation to the set.

Notice that the diffusion face and the inner baffle have been removed from the soft box. This set up produces a high contrast light output.

Our camera has a macro focus capability that allows objects to be photographed very closely.

Here, the lens is only about 3/4 inch from the ring.

We have a good shot with this set up.

We wanted to add a little diffusion to the shot, so we attached the inner baffle to the Starlite Kit and took another shot.

The top section of the diamond is now lighter in tone because it reflects the white area of the internal baffle.

Also, the level of diffusion in the overall shot has increased significantly, as the shadows cast from the ring are now much softer.

We decided to further diffuse the slight source by adding the diffusion face to the soft box.

Now notice how the entire top of the diamond reflects the overhead face of the softbox and that the shadow is nearly undetectable.

Using Photoshop, it took about 20 seconds to "paint" over the gray areas in the image. Now the image has a nice bright ring against a clean, white background.