Product photography *help*

Cuchulain

Cuchulain

Cuchulain

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2004
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Derry
Hoping to get a bit of advice if possible, my wife has decided she's going to make personalised gifts in her spare time and wants me to start taking decent photos of whatever she makes. I haven't really done any photography of any kind in many years but I needed a new camera and recently bought a Nikon D5200 with the kit 18-55mm VR lens.

Would I be better off with a 35 or 50mm prime over the kit lens? (they're both reasonably cheap) and I'm confused with lighting, I have a huge white backdrop and could probably cobble together something for the foreground but how to cut out harsh shadows? Remote flash and umbrella or some kind of daylight bulb setup with a softbox?

Cheers!
 
Use just the kit lens as you'll be at around f8 or even smaller apertures to control the depth of field. You can use any background, as long as it doesn't distract from the product. Don't use a direct flash if you want to avoid harsh shadows, nor do you want to shoot in completely artificial light as you need some good lights to control it properly. If on the absolute cheap, get yourself a 5 in 1 reflector and use ambient light next to a large window during peak daylight hours. This will give you the soft lighting you want, that can be controlled to light shadows by either reflecting it with the 5 in 1, or shooting a flash against it, depending on your setup.

Don't try arty apertures (large in other words) as you'll more than likely blur part of the product
 
First question is how big are the gifts? Light tents or product display tables are not going to be of any use if they are life sized mannequins!

Also where are the photos going to be displayed e.g. low pixel count web photos or blown up for display purposes? If small or for email purposes you'll get away with a lot compared with pixel peeping a huge image.

For small products the setup could simply be an a3 sheet of paper propped up at one end to create a seamless background. Two lights either side of the product to eliminate shadows with a little more light being pushed on to the background to blow it out. Camera in manual on a tripod to get the correct aperture to get all of the product in focus but blur out the background.

You can also get a piece of glossy / reflective plastics to sit the product on which can really make an impact, again it depends on what you're photographing.

.edit.
Also get a 5 in 1 reflector (£6) and you can use that to bounce light around if needed, e.g. set camera to timer function, hold the reflector to the front of the product to light areas that might otherwise be in shadow depending upon how the lights are setup.
 
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All good advice, thanks folks. The products are candles etc, some will be in gift baskets so a light tent (which we already have) would be a bit too small.

So, if I'm understanding all this, 3 lights, one either side and one for blowing out the background and the reflector in front? Does it matter if the reflector is handheld even with longer exposures?

thanks again.
 
You can get quite chunky sized light tents and they aren't too expensive (probably around £20), i've photographed my kids sitting in mine when they were younger before i got studio type kit lol.

You could get away with one light + reflector to bounce light in from the other side, two lights would be better though. You don't really need three but it wouldn't hurt but i'd still start with one more likely two. Start to understand simple characteristics of how the light works first before leaping in to a huge light setup :).

Reference the lighting the background in very simple terms it just has to have more light than your product. If you get the correct exposure for the product (hence shooting manual) then by its very nature the background will be overexposed, how much depends on how much more light its getting compared with the product itself. No hard and fast rules as to angles or positioning just experiment with your environment and what you have on hand and see what works.

A reflector just give you lots of options because you can play with that to see what works best for the price they are great value. Don't go mad and get a huge one though otherwise you'll find it difficult to use around your setup. Just a little 50/60cm should be fine. And hand held is fine as we're still only talking fractions of a second so minor movement is neither here nor there.

"Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting" for me was a bible of information for this type of thing. Also check out youtube and Gavin Hoey for RW examples = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM4zca0NH9M
 
I've just bought a little light tent for product photography and some lights. Partially out of boredom and also for possible income sources as I know a few people that sell on eBay. I figure the more I'm geared up for, the more chance of making money :)
 
Make a light of out of a big cardboard box. Cut 2 big windows on either side of a front opening, put white paper across the windows and line the box. Use a bright light like a 500w work lamp (buy these dead cheap from hardware stores like B&Q) shinning through each window. Optionally put a whole in the top for a flash to point down from (if you do this then you will need to fire the flash remotely from camera, I rarely bother).

You will get very even light without any/much expense. Biggest pain is to get make sure the paper on the inside has no visible joins. Best done using large sheets of paper or better still a paper roll and curve the paper from the base to the back.

Stop down to f/16. you will be diffraction limited at full size (100% view) but for a product image you will downsize the photo for the web and sharpness will no longer be an issue. Use a tripod with a solid head and legs, use a remote or timer.
 
Paper rolls so far seem seriously expensive, I must be looking in the wrong place. I've seen some backdrops complete with tripod/frame for about £30 in various places so I might be better off with that.

I'll still be using reasonably hi-res photos, probably down to 6mp from 24. (along with the smaller ones for ecommerce use), should I still be using F16 for that? Thanks :)
 
Cuchulain said:
Paper rolls so far seem seriously expensive, I must be looking in the wrong place. I've seen some backdrops complete with tripod/frame for about £30 in various places so I might be better off with that.

I'll still be using reasonably hi-res photos, probably down to 6mp from 24. (along with the smaller ones for ecommerce use), should I still be using F16 for that? Thanks :)
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F/16 is fine for 6MP images
 
Just wanted to pop back in and thank you guys for your help, 50mm arrived today, got a hold of my reflectors and some 5.3k halogen bulbs and the difference is night and day, helps that I've asked the missus to let me take photos without the cellophane wrapping too, serious reflection problems.
 
Cuchulain said:
Just wanted to pop back in and thank you guys for your help, 50mm arrived today, got a hold of my reflectors and some 5.3k halogen bulbs and the difference is night and day, helps that I've asked the missus to let me take photos without the cellophane wrapping too, serious reflection problems.
Click to expand...
Excellent, you'll have to post up some sample shots once you've got all sorted :)
 
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