Adventures in product photography

I was supposed to have gotten the first batch of the coordinating dice/tray sets on Etsy by now but, uh, turns out taking pictures of sparkly dice is about as hard as taking pictures of sparkly dragon eyes and if you follow me on Mastodon you know I struggle with that too.

Another batch arrived, even prettier than the last batch and even harder to photograph. The ring-light lights them nice and evenly… and the iridescent glitter mostly disappears.

Maybe a black background? No, even locking white balance blows out the lighter parts.

What about flash? It does show some of the glitter (look at that d6!) but it also looks like I caught dice on my wildlife camera.

Using the Ott gooseneck off the worktable helps bring out some glitter but also makes for harsh shadows.

Some glitter. These are just a rainbow galaxy in real life. Here? Not so much.

Also, figuring out what designs go well with these raspberry-lemonade dice will be fun.

At least these are easy to photograph. I didn’t order any of the blood-spatter kind but I kind of got one anyway, whoops. The other two sets of that type are more “funfetti” and less “murder clown,” I promise.

Anyway, in the course of writing this I remembered that the ring light has a dimmer, so I’m off to experiment with combinations of ring light and spotlight. And also maybe seeing if the family wants to play some D&D.