Product Photography

[W00DY]

Hi All,

I was wondering what equipment would be best to use for product photography (toys, baby wear, catalogue stuff etc...)

I need to do some of this for my wife's new business. I took a few shots with my studio lights on a bench I use in the studio and whilst I think they were ok I know they can be better. Example of one below:



Does anyone do this type of photography?

I have seen some images of setups and they are using lamps rather than studio lights, is this a better option? Also is a light box or light table better (or does this depend on what you are photographing?). I would like to do some shallow depth of field (2. shots as well, some setups where some products are in focus and the rest are out of focus behind. I think my studio lights are too strong for this.

I don't know to much about this stuff so some advice would be helpful.

Cheers,
Andrew

[Alex]

Hi,

You don't need a lighting tent for every job. You can work with a roll of white seamless paper and some strobes. Light tents are good, but sometimes the light they provide is too soft and there are no shadows which does not help defining shape of the object.

One thing about product photography is that in a lot of instances you will be shooting to have everything sharp (apart from more artistic shallow DoF shots) and you will need to shoot from relatively short distances, which means you'll need tiny apertures (8-16) and lots of light. You can do with normal camera flashes, but you will have much more flexibility with studio strobes of 600w/s and up.

Alex

[gstark]

One thing about product photography is that in a lot of instances you will be shooting to have everything sharp

Absolutely.

You can do with normal camera flashes, but you will have much more flexibility with studio strobes of 600w/s and up.

The best solution though would be to acquire a view camera of some sort, and to learn how to use its unique features to do this.

[big pix]

I can see what you are trying to achieve, but you have lost detail with the white parts of the shoe. Reduce the background light or move it back and add a BLACK reflector behind the shoes leaving a small amount of background between the shoes and reflector. You will find that this will add shape to the white areas and reduce some of the flare and can be taken out with deep etching......... also a Nikon 85mm PC lens is good for this type of work

[sirhc55]

Light tent + 2 cold fluoro’s

[photohiker]

I played around recently to sell some ballheads on ebay.

For very little effort really, quite usable shots from a light tent, a single cold fluro and daylight. Sample @ 1/90, f8 105mm
As alex said, depth of field was pretty shallow, should have gone f16 or 32 I guess, will try that next time.

Michael

[Bindii]

I use a light tent for most of my product photography shots... but then again the stuff I am photographing is small so the light tent is ideal... for larger stuff the seamless paper as suggested and even some great daylight (and a small amount of pp) will do the trick...

[Yi-P]

Light tent + 3 speedlights

location, inside a commercial kitchen



1 Strobe with softbox and a big white carton



Tho a tent produces nice outputs, it really depends how you want to control reflection and refraction on your product. You must pay extra attention to the placement of your product and every corner or places where light reflects back, and a little change of direction of light can change the whole output and the 'wow' factor.

[iluxa]

I usually use light tent and four lights - two from sides, one from above (or from the front) and one from the bottom (through a glass table). The fourth light from the bottom will erase all background by blowing highlights - but it's just for convenience and you can use three lights instead and do a small Photoshop trick later.

It's not my setup, but I use the same one without softboxes.

Three lights setup.



Without light tent.

[Justin]

with 'view camera' do you mean like the hasselblads? where you look down at a larger view?

What would those cameras give you? (inquiring minds, etc..)

[big pix]

one studio flash bounced off the ceiling and a reflector....... shot using a D70s with 105 macro.......

[gstark]

with 'view camera' do you mean like the hasselblads? where you look down at a larger view?

What would those cameras give you? (inquiring minds, etc..)

No.

A Hasselblad is regarded as a medium format (MF) camera. Others in that category include the Mamiya and Pentax 6x7s, Bronica and Mamiya 645s, and Rollei and Bronica 6x6s. You can get 'blads in either 645 or 6x6, anf the numbers relate to the image sizes in centimeters: 6 x 4.5cm, 6 x 6 cm, or 6 x 7 cm.

You can also get preloved Twin Lens Reflex cameras (TLRs) in the 6x6 format (Rollei, Yashica, Mamiya) and there are some Russian imitation 'blads as well.

Most of the MF SLR cameras are very modular in design: exchangeable film backs (you can switch from colour to B&W to high speed mid roll); exchangeable viewfinders: waist level, prism, metered, unmetered; accessory grips; exchangeable focus screens, as well as the usual raft of interchangeable lenses. I can pull my Bronica ETR down to a box with a big hole through the middle. N back, no prism, no lens, and shutter tripped, so that the mirror is raised.

A view camera is a different beastie altogether. The usual smallest size is 4x5. Inches. Think of a postcard sized photo. That's how big your negative is!

It's basically a frame with a bellows. The frame has a film plane, which has a ground glass focusing screen that accepts double darkslides. The DDSs are where you load your film. At the opposite end of the camera from the film plane there's a lens board, onto which you mount your lens.

Both the film and lens planes may be moved through a number of realms: vertically, horizontally, or swung through any angles away from the vertical or horizontal planes. This does funny things to the way that the image may be rendered at the film plane, and those funny things, depeninding upon your skill and the end image that you want to see, may be very desirable.

View cameras need to be focused through the use of their groundglass, and typically, from under a dark coth so that you may see that's happening. The come in other sizes too: 5x7 and 8x10 being the most commin.

[Glen]

Bernie, wonderful pics, my mouth is salivating just looking at them.

Gary, you can't beat medium format (unless it is large format).