We mounted an Olympus E-10 digital camera to a tripod, turned the power on (figure 5), and zoomed all the way out on the lens to keep the rings proportionally sized to each other. We set the Exposure and Focus Modes to Manual, set the ISO to 80 (its lowest setting), set the Resolution to SHQ, and made a Custom White Balance setting to match the color temperature of the Starlite Kit. We dialed the aperture down to f/11 to maintain a large depth of field, set the shutter speed to 1/30th of a second and took a shot (figures 6 & 7).

Looking at the image in the back of the camera, we realized that we needed to be able to come in closer. Fortunately, Olympus makes an optional macro lens attachment for the E-10 for situations like this. We attached the lens, came in a little tighter, and took another shot (figures 8 & 9).

In this result shot, notice how the attachment lens helped our composition by minimizing the relative size difference between the rings. Even though the light from the overhead softbox had lit the top and bottom of the rings nicely, the sides of the rings appeared dark and flat.

To add more dimension to the shot, we set up another small Starlite kit, positioned it off to the left hand side and took another shot (figures 10 & 11).

The result shot shows a big improvement. The transition between light and dark is smooth, and interesting shapes are formed by the addition of this second soft box.

Next, we decided to add another Starlite Kit to the right side to balance the reflections of the ring. Without changing the camera settings, I took another shot (figures 12 & 13).

Although this third light source filled in the dark areas and balanced the reflections, it still maintained a good contrast level to the shot and a sense of dimension to the rings.

The addition of both side lights, however, brightened the background considerably. To keep the light solely on the rings, we attached Grids to each of the side soft boxes, and took another shot (figures 14 & 15).

Notice how the background has darkened, and yet the light and reflections on the rings have not changed
(figure 16).

Next, we wanted to brighten up the diamond a little, but keep everything else the same. We set up a Dedolight focusing light on a small Litestand, turned off the Starlites, and focused the light so that it only hit the diamond and the adjoining parts of the ring. This helped to draw more attention to the diamond. We turned the Starlites back on and took another shot (figure 17 & 18).

Reviewing the shot on the LCD, we noticed that the tone of the rear ring was a little too close to that of the background. To create more separation, we decided to cut the light hitting the aluminum even more by placing a set of Louvers on the face of the overhead soft box. Once these were in place, we took another shot (figures 19 & 20).

The result shows that f/2.4 made the rear ring so soft as to be almost unrecognizable. We split the difference and set the aperture to f/4.5, adjusted the shutter speed, and took one last shot (figure 23).

After the shoot, we opened the final image in Adobe Photoshop Elements and used the Rubber Stamp tool to erase the metal clips that held up the rings. We also boosted the contrast a little more to make the background appear even farther away (figure 24).