Want to take simple, good photos of loose gemstones?

On a google adventure the other day I stumbled across this post about using an LED 10x with your phones camera.
It is pretty straight forward so I gave it ago straight away!
The results are pretty good if you dont have an expensive set up or in a hurry.










You can see here how shallow the depth of field is.

Bumps in the Road

So my year of 'Do more stuff' has turned out to be the complete opposite.
I wont go into too much detail as this blog is about Jewellery and Gemstones but not long after my last post I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34.
The last few months have been a whirlwind of doctors appointments, surgeries and treatments. This has left ZERO time for anything even remotely creative or fun jewellery or gem wise!
Health wise all will be good. It was caught early, contained and fully removed via surgery. I have finished chemo and just about to start radio therapy. One of the many side effects of treatment has been numbness in my fingers and painful nails (they can actually fall off if I am not careful!!) so while things are calming down now I still have to wait a little longer till my hands are better. Talk about frustrating!

Now. Back on topic...

The jade carving competition I mentioned. I haven't even started my entry and it is due end of October. Unless my fingers improve ASAP I don't think I will be able to submit anything which I am pretty disappointed about.

Yesterday I went to the Glen Waverley Lapidary Clubs exhibition.
I bought some slabs and two cats eye tourmalines which are totally awesome. I got to catch up with some people from my lapidary club which was nice and now itching to get back into things! I have no idea how long it will take to bounce back from all this madness so until then this blog might just be links to interesting things and random photos of gems.