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Mineral Specimen Photography
Black Backgrounds

Black background ist the most easy to make and usefull for all specimens , except of course for all very dark or black ones.(see setup 1)
The specimen is mounted with some distance over a glass plate. Only the specimen ist lightened. The background, a black cloth, in the far distance (30 cm) below the glass plate is kept in the dark. Even if you can see some with the eye in the viewfinder, the imager of the camera will produce a perfect black background. Keep in mind , this works only well if the glass plate is out of the focus range. Otherwise you have to struggle with dust. But if the dust is not in focus, it will not desturb very much. Use f= 8 and focus stacking fo small specimens.

Specimen mounted with putty and metal rod on glass plate.
If the specimen is put direct on the glass plate and the glass plate is within the focus, all dust whill be unwanted sharp visible on the picture and disturb.

Black cloth as background.

Below: specimen mounted (detail)

Specimen is illuminated with 3x 20 W parabol spot lamps and diffusor screens. The background with no light is in the dark. Below the resulting picture with the archive information.

Photography	My pictures at Mindat	Photography Service	Picture Labels	Leitz Ortholux I	Benefits of stacking	Home
Vertical Setup	Vertical Setup 1	Vertical Setup 2	Vertical Setup 3	Vertical Setup 4	Vertical Setup 5	Vertical Setup 6
Table Top Setup	Glass Plate	Acryl glass on glass	Inclined view	Diffusor tunnel	Diffusor tunnel for gradient	Black on glass
Backgrounds	black	white	coloured	gradient	colour spots	Conclusion