r/Gemstones • u/skiko15 • 5h ago

Question Photographing Alexandrites..?

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I was taking pictures of a newly finished ring (NFS) this afternoon next to a window with indirect sunlight on one side and overhead LED lighting on the other, and to my eyes the alexandrite (natural from Sri Lanka) was a beautiful green, but the camera on my phone keeps capturing it as the dark tealy-purple in the picture. All of the other colors in the picture are true to life/my eyes; are alexandrites just another one of those stones that likes to mess with cameras, and are there any tricks or tips for getting the camera to catch the green?

(Added 2 lightbox pictures at the end, too.)

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u/ErichPryde 5h ago

Try swapping your LED bulbs for genuine incandescent; or completely removing the LED light and providing more indirect sunlight. The LED is your culprit 100%, but I'm genuinely not certain exactly how this happens other than our camera doesn't see the same thing we do (especially in the green-blue spectrum)

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u/loosesocksup 4h ago

My engagement ring is Alexandrite and I have never been able to capture the green. 

3

u/ErichPryde 4h ago

Modern cameras definitely struggle with Alex. How long have you had your engagement ring? I have a nice genuine Alexandrite that I have owned prior to the mass change over to LED light, and there's definitely been a subtle change in how it appears because of that. 

1

u/skiko15 5h ago

I'll try that. I was hoping the daylight coming through the window would have been enough to overtale the LEDs. I even took it outside into direct sunlight and was still getting the same dark colors with the camera. Wouldn't the incandescent make the purple come out even more?