Poor Photography Job - Expert Opinion On These Images Please

Jambo · 4 Mar 2015 at 01:07

I recently had a product photographed and I find the end result to be of poor quality. I would appreciate if anyone could give me feedback on the images.

The photographer claims these images were professionally lit, shot and edited but it seems really dull to me and there is some darkness particularly in the top left area of this first image. It looks like some kind of shadowing. The photographer is saying this is because I asked for a standard white background instead of solid white. I am not sure how this would cause the 'shadowing' on top of the actual pink area of the product though. Can anyone clarify? I intended to cut the images so didn't see why I'd need a solid white background. Isn't that how you would create a solid white background anyway?

Here is the first image with the pink side of the product.

The second image of the black side doesn't look great either.

The third image is of the packaging which is a plastic packet but doesn't even look like it's plastic.

I don't have an ideal image for comparison but if you see this amateur picture you will see that the product should really be looking quite bright.

Here is a picture of the packaging looking more normal too.

Can anyone offer any thoughts on this? If anyone wants to see original images (before I resized them) I'm happy to email them.

These images were intended for print but I don't think these are usable at all. It was a cheap job but I'm just keen to know if I am being unfair by complaining about the result.

Thanks for any help.

Sh4rkie · 4 Mar 2015 at 01:33

Very poor images imo, camera phone esq with crap lighting.

They could be cleaned up in post to salvage them but that's not the point, they should arrived to you a lot better than they have.

MeFox · 4 Mar 2015 at 04:51

They look like there made whit a phone... anyway if you need someone professional i can get you in touch whit

{SAS}TB · 4 Mar 2015 at 07:11

I wouldn't be happy with those if I took them myself let alone paying an "expert"

Columbo · 4 Mar 2015 at 08:51

Shoddy job that should not have been charged for, 2 £20 flashes in slave mode and cheap digital camera could have achieved better results. I'd be ashamed to pass those on if I'd done them for free.

MichaelAwkward · 4 Mar 2015 at 10:07

They look like the photos I take with my iPhone of things I'm selling on eBay...

mr tommo · 4 Mar 2015 at 10:42

They are seriously poor. Is he/she actually a photographer or just giving it a go?

A bit of editing could have turned what is a pretty crap image into something half decent.

Annoys me that people are out there charging for stuff like this, we always get clients coming to us with stupid quotes from their mate who is a photographer expecting us to match.

Did you look at their previous product work and out of curiosity what was the cost?

An Exception · 4 Mar 2015 at 12:01

How much did they cost.

tom_e · 4 Mar 2015 at 12:06

They actually look worse than the pictures I spend 2 minutes taking on my phone of things that go on the bay, in fact I'd probably struggle to make my pictures look that bad!

Jambo · 4 Mar 2015 at 13:03

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

As mentioned it was a cheap job so it was always a gamble really whether they were going to be decent or not. It only cost $15.75 via Fiverr so I completely accept I shouldn't have expected much.

That said I was pretty shocked just how bad it was given that the listing was for a professional high quality photograph and supposedly professionally lit. Her previous work seemed decent enough and feedback was good so I was just a bit bamboozled to receive these poor images.

Furthermore she doesn't see any problem with it and blames me for not asking for solid white background. :confused:

Does that make any sense?

I'm happy enough to write it off as a bad experience but I'm going to leave an honest review so just wanted to make sure I wasn't being unfair with it.

As an aside, how much do you think it should cost to get this done well?

mr tommo · 4 Mar 2015 at 13:16

A white background is a white background. My white background product photography would either be sent out with a complete white background (with nice shadow dependant on brief) or it would be cut out for the client.

You've asked for the most basic of product shots against a white background and received rubbish so you won't be wrong to leave a less than satisfactory review.

Just to give you an idea, this is a standard product photo that we do for clients who want a white background. It's not a cutout as that wasn't required. Just well lit and a little editing afterwards. To give you an idea we'd have charged £10 per image with a minimum of 10 images Basically £100 which covers setup fee and 10 images). Not ideal if you are just looking for one photo like yourselves as we have to charge the setup fee.

This is as difficult as it gets with shiny reflective surfaces.

An Exception · 4 Mar 2015 at 13:28

$15.75 is cheap for such a lesson, so it's not wasted. To be fair to the photographer, the Taneraser doesn't look like an easy product to photograph, especially when in it's packaging.

Sh4rkie · 4 Mar 2015 at 13:56

@Jambo the reason the plastic packaging doesn't look right in the third image is it isn't inside the plastic wrap. She's taken out the card and shot it lay on top of the packaging.

Jambo · 4 Mar 2015 at 14:06

mr tommo said:
A white background is a white background. My white background product photography would either be sent out with a complete white background (with nice shadow dependant on brief) or it would be cut out for the client.

You've asked for the most basic of product shots against a white background and received rubbish so you won't be wrong to leave a less than satisfactory review.

That's what I thought as I was just going to cut the background anyway.

mr tommo said:
Just to give you an idea, this is a standard product photo that we do for clients who want a white background. It's not a cutout as that wasn't required. Just well lit and a little editing afterwards. To give you an idea we'd have charged £10 per shot with a minimum of 10. Not ideal if you are just looking for one photo as we have to charge the setup fee.

Thanks mr tommo. Your example is the kind of result I had hoped for really.

The minimum order would be an issue as I only really need 3 images. I'll have a look round and see what I can find.

An Exception said:
$15.75 is cheap for such a lesson, so it's not wasted. To be fair to the photographer, the Taneraser doesn't look like an easy product to photograph, especially when in it's packaging.

Yeah it was worth a go. Fair point but I'd still have expected better than this.

Sh4rkie said:
@Jambo the reason the plastic packaging doesn't look right in the third image is it isn't inside the plastic wrap. She's taken out the card and shot it lay on top of the packaging.

I thought that Sh4rkie. I guess she was having reflective issues but it's not a very satisfactory solution.

Thanks again all.

mr tommo · 4 Mar 2015 at 14:16

Jambo said:
Thanks mr tommo. Your example is the kind of result I had hoped for really.

The minimum order would be an issue as I only really need 3 images. I'll have a look round and see what I can find.

I'm sure you will come up with something cheaper, we run a studio and not setup specifically for products so when we do get a product job its usually in bulk.

A photographer I used to work with works here now, might be worth a look : http://www.genieandthegeek.co.uk/

Edit : No idea about pricing but she was very good and sometimes helps me out as a second shooter at weddings.

Jambo · 4 Mar 2015 at 16:04

mr tommo said:
I'm sure you will come up with something cheaper, we run a studio and not setup specifically for products so when we do get a product job its usually in bulk.

A photographer I used to work with works here now, might be worth a look : http://www.genieandthegeek.co.uk/

Edit : No idea about pricing but she was very good and sometimes helps me out as a second shooter at weddings.

Thanks. They look very reasonable, might give them a try.

Jambo · 4 Mar 2015 at 21:13

Sh4rkie said:
@Jambo the reason the plastic packaging doesn't look right in the third image is it isn't inside the plastic wrap. She's taken out the card and shot it lay on top of the packaging.

I've just heard back from her on this point and she says she didn't take out the card. It does look like it has been but who knows..... it's hard to tell I guess because the image is so poor.

Incredibly her defence on the dullness on the pink side was that it's the colour of the product and she can't control that.

Jase · 4 Mar 2015 at 23:06

I could have guessed without reading any more than the original post this would have been something from Fiverr.

You get what you pay for!! it's like people who buy logos from there, do they honestly think the person is going to take the time and effort to make a unique logo? they won't, they'll just change the name on some template.

Same with this, the photographer just had a standard setup which he uses for everything and spent no time on it.

At least you know and hopefully will not make the same mistake again.

An Exception · 4 Mar 2015 at 23:24

Jase said:
You get what you pay for!!

Yes.. at least as a rule of thumb.

Sh4rkie · 5 Mar 2015 at 00:25

Jambo said:
I've just heard back from her on this point and she says she didn't take out the card. It does look like it has been but who knows..... it's hard to tell I guess because the image is so poor.

Fair play then, and in all honesty she's controlled the reflections very well, shame about the rest of it!