Need Help With Jewelry Photography! Canon Rebel t5

[Metalsmith]

Hey Everyone,

I own the Canon Rebel t5 and I have the standard 58mm lens and a 60mm macro lens. I shoot my jewelry photographs in a Foldio light box.

I am a super beginner with my Canon and so far have found the most success shooting in the Manual Exposure setting. I typically use a shutter speed between 1/500, 1/640 or 1/800, it seems to give me the brightest results. My aperture was always around F5 and ISO1600. Here is what i'm hoping to achieve and unable to:

*A jewelry shot that is completely in focus

*As white a background as possible (I currently shoot in the lightbox on top of white computer paper)

I have tried changing the aperture but it still seems that I still can't get the entire ring, necklace, or earring in focus and this is critical so that I can then edit in photoshop. I've also tried the macro setting but photos come out too dark when I can't change the shutter speed.

I'm very open to everyones suggestions and expertise. My jewelry website is www.metalribbonstudio.com I hired a photographer for a some photos but the backgrounds she gave me were gray so I have to redo a lot of my photos and a ton of the ones I have taken are blurry in the background, in focus in the foreground.

Cheers,

Corkie

[Waddizzle]

Check out this article to understand why your backgrounds are not coming out the way you want.

http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2015/metering_modes_morita.shtml

The metering in the camera tries to "normalize" the light that it detects in every scene. The camera tries to make everything in the exposure average out to a medium gray, not too bright and not too dark.  The metering system is color blind, BTW.  This means stuff that is bright white is underexposed, so that it comes out a shade of gray.  Stuff that is jet black is overexposed so that it comes out a shade of gray.

This "normalization" works fairly well for average photos.  But, when you start capturing specialized images, like macro shots of jewelry with a white background, then the metering works against you.  This is where your camera's exposure compensation can come in handy, so that you can set the camera to over, or under, expose by a fixed amount.

[EDIT]  BTW, I think that I can see your camera reflected in the jewelry.

[Metalsmith]

Update 2

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I read an article about the exposure triangle and found it very helpful. http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2015/understanding-exposure-triangle.shtml

The tripod has helped. I shot this in manual mode and its already substainially better than the previous photo. With some editing in photoshop I think the end result will be pretty good. I came here to get advice on getting the entire piece in focus and you were all able to help me with some suggestions for that! I recognize there are many other areas I can address to over all improve my photography. I will continue to read, experiment and take pictures. I also realize the colorpicker **bleep** is something I will need to educate myself about thoroughly.

Thanks everyone! 

[Waddizzle]

"The tripod has helped. I shot this in manual mode and its already substainially better than the previous photo. With some editing in photoshop I think the end result will be pretty good. " 

NICE WORK.  Very nice!  It looks like work done by a completely different photographer.

What version of Photoshop?  The full blown version [not Photoshop Elements] can do the focus stacking that I mentioned earlier.

[RobertTheFat]

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@Waddizzle wrote:

"The tripod has helped. I shot this in manual mode and its already substainially better than the previous photo. With some editing in photoshop I think the end result will be pretty good. " 

NICE WORK.  Very nice!  It looks like work done by a completely different photographer. ...

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Agreed!