Mineral Collection Photography
Agate and red jasper from my mineral collection.
Mineral collections are for sharing. Don't let your lack of skills or equipment keep you from sharing stunningly beutiful photos. You can take consistently lit, in focus and detailed photos without fancy equipment or a trained eye.
The equipment you need is:
- 3-4 sheets of paper for background and to make an origami throne for larger minerals
- a table lamp for a light source
- a few underarm size boxes to adjust the height between the lamp and the mineral
- a phone with a camera
The expensive part is time.
Setup a mineral photo studio
Mineral photo studio with paper, lamp, phone and boxes.
Aim to create a small studio with a neutral coloured background, flat surface, strong light source and enough space to maneuver the camera close to the mineral.
- Pick a wall away from a window. Sunlight is more colourful than lamplight, but varies as the day goes by and as clouds pass under the Sun. Lamplight is easier to control and LED light bulbs are colourful enough. If you still own an incandescent light bulb, unscrew it, put it into your fossil box and go buy an LED.
- Carry the table next to the chosen wall. The table should be big enough to accomodate a table lamp, a stack of underarm size boxes and a container of minerals. If the table is too big you won't be able to get close to the mineral. If it's too small it will be cramped. A coffee table or a drawer medium sized drawer will do best.
- Create a stack of boxes and put them next to a wall. Minerals are going to rest on top of the boxes. The mineral should be close enough to the table lamp, but not too close that the phone can't see the mineral. Adjust the box stack height accordingly.
- Create the photo backdrop by leaning the papers, wide side up, next to the wall. Half of the paper should be leaning up against the wall and the other half resting on the box stack. If the papers are slipping, put a rough surface beneath the paper, like a pillow or a cardboard box.
- Place the container of minerals close to the paper. The less the minerals have to travel, the smaller the probability they'll slip, drop to the floor, roll under the furniture or get damaged by the fall. Hubris made me think dropping minerals is for other people, so instead of listening to my own advice I had to spend ten minutes on my knees, humbled, searching for a dark, tiny pebble beneath a couch.
- Plug in the table lamp and make it face the mineral head on. The angle between the mineral and the lamp should be between 30 and 45 degrees. If the angle is too sharp, there won't be a place for the phone to take an unobstructed photo. Too obtuse and it will create dark shadows that will hide the mineral's beauty.
Tweak the camera settings
Camera settings and aspect ration are different for small and large mineral.
Phone cameras are made for taking photos of humans, cats, oaks and moutains. However, with adjustments, the phone can take close up photos of minerals too.
Tell the camera to keep the settings even when you exit the app. Otherwise, the app will reset to the default settings for taking photos of people and dogs.
Turn off all smart features. These will get in the way as the phone will try to make the photos look better. It will fail dreadfully and make the photos look much much worse.
Set the camera to a mode where you can adjust its numerical settings. Aim to adjust:
- ISO - set it low as the table lamp is bright and a high setting will make the photo look grainy
- Shutter speed - anywhere between 1/125 and 1/50 worked for me, but adjust it until the photo looks as similar to what your eyes see
- Focus - set it to 0.0, so you can get as close as you can to the mineral to capture as many details as you can
- White Balance (WB) - the value is too high if the photo is orange and too low if the photo is blue
Taking photos
Raw photos of agate and red jasper.
Take a mineral from its container and place it under the table lamp. Rotate, flip, roll and angle the mineral until its most appealing side is facing the camera.
Take anywhere between 3-5 photos at different angles and distances. Zoom in and compare which one is the least grainy. Move onto the next mineral only if you are happy with how the photos looks. If none of the photos are good, adjust the camera settings. If the photos are still not good, adjust the studio setup and check if the camera lens has a smudge.
Get ready for the first five mineral photos to lood bad as you make fine adjustments to the studio and camera settings.
Minerals that refuse to stand up
Quartz is too large to stand upright.
Round, thin or large minerals will refuse to stand upright.
Make an origami throne for these royal highnesses. When I made a throne from an A4 sheet, it was too big. Adjust the paper size and make a throne that fits your minerals.
Instead of taking photos from the same direction as the table lamp, position it so that the lamp and camera are at a 90 degree angle. Adjust the underarm sized box stack height. Try different setups and see what works best for your minerals.
Minerals that glare
Opal's glare contained in its upper left corner.
There's no way to eliminate glare without specilaized equipment. Try avoiding glare by manuvering the camera and mineral. If it doesn't work, try to make it least visible by containing glare in the least pretty corner of a mineral.
Editing photos
Upload the photos, crop them and share them. I found no reason to edit the photos. The mineral's natural beauty, captured by a phone camera, is good enough for me.