This past weekend, I got a message from a fellow photographer asking how I got such sharp, clear close-ups of my bride and groom’s rings. I answered truthfully: Most of the time I don’t; Danny does.

It’s true — he’s got the steadier hands (I never would have passed muster to be a surgeon!), so I usually hand over the macro lens and let him have at the rings because I know he’ll produce the results we want in a shorter amount of time, but I’ve taken my fair share of ring shots, too. We know there are plenty of wedding photographers out there whose ring shots are wildly more creative than ours — but what we produce are clean closeups that simply show of the beauty of our couples’ rings. So I decided to go ahead and share the advice I gave to the other photographer — a simple step-by-step of how to make your ring shots sharper and clearer — which is what you and your clients want.

In all honesty, a good closeup ring shot starts with a good camera and lens. I’m not saying you need the newest, most expensive DSLR. But the truth is that, the better your camera, the better your camera’s sensor; the better your camera’s sensor, the clearer, richer, and crisper the images will be (assuming you’re using the camera to its full potential). That doesn’t mean that you can’t get great macro shots on an older camera or one with a crop frame sensor. You definitely can — we used to use crop frame sensor cameras, and our macro shots were more than just passable. What you will need though is a good macro lens. I know some photographers use extension tubes on non-macro lenses to do macro photography, and another photographer I know recently shared that you can get a semi-macro-type shot by flipping a 50 mm lens around (haven’t tried that yet!), but I personally have no experience with anything but a macro lens for macro photography and only know that the majority of wedding photographers end up buying macro lenses for a reason: They’re simply the best tool for the job.

Now let’s talk about actually shooting the rings. Choosing where to photograph the rings is the first step to getting a great ring shot. Our preference is for lots of natural, ambient light, although if you’re able to shine a light directly through a diamond, that creates some dazzling sparkle. Whether you decide to photograph the ring(s) on a solid surface, such as the reflective marble floor above, or with another detail or in a location unique for the couple, you’ll want to make sure that the ring isn’t competing with the other details for the viewer’s attention — the ring needs to be the clear focus of the picture.

When it comes to the exact focal point, you’re going to want to make sure you’re using the focus-select buttons on your camera. Focus-recompose isn’t a sure bet with macro photography, because the little bit of recomposing you will do will change the focal plane dramatically in a tight macro shot with such a shallow depth of field.Make sure your focus is squarely on the diamond — not on a prong, not on the band, not a millimeter to the left or right. While you can get away with being a hair off in portraits, you simply cannot when you’re shooting rings.

Before you actually start clicking the shutter though, a few more things.

Shooting in AF-C (continuous) will help your camera focus even as your hands wobble a bit. If you’re using a tripod, AF-C isn’t necessary, but our experience is that there’s rarely time to whip out a tripod and set it up for detail shots on a wedding day, and as we’re traipsing through fields and cities and beaches for engagement sessions, a tripod is the last thing we want to be carrying. So try shooting in continuous and see how it works for you. (Note: Hand-holding macro shots when you’re using a lens without Vibration Reduction — Nikon — or Image Stabilization — Canon — will be less successful than when you use a lens with VR or IS.)

Also, stop down your aperture to roughly f/ 5 or narrower. Shooting at a wide aperture, while beautiful for portraits (and our preference for portraits) means you won’t get enough of the ring in focus, and you’ll be missing the crispness and detail you want.

While some photographers always manually focus their lenses for macro shots, we don’t always do it — but we do sometimes. If your lens keeps searching for focus, or if you’re not happy with what the autofocus is giving you, manually focusing is definitely the way to go.

One of the biggest things that helps us get the exact ring shot we want every time is to . . . shoot about 5x the number of shots that we actually want. Even zooming in on your camera’s LCD screen, it can be difficult to tell if it’s tack sharp or if the focus is where you want it. So shoot lots and lots of frames so you guarantee yourself several great ones to choose from.

And one last thing: Get ready to postprocess your ring shots. We generally keep our Photoshopping to a minimum because we want our images to reflect the way things really were — but macro photography can be unforgiving. Blemishes that you can’t see with the naked eye suddenly show up in diamonds when you enlarge them in a photograph. You’ll spot a stray piece pf fuzz caught in a prong. The diamond might not radiate quite enough light. So this is where we don’t always hold back with Photoshop. If a bride loves her ring at its actual size, we want to make sure she loves it when it’s enlarged, too!Hope that was helpful! If you’ve got any additional questions or something you think I should have covered, post away! Thanks for reading, and have fun shooting.

~ Laura