10 Key Tips for Product Photography Exceptional examples from Photo Solutions
We recently received a query from one of you about tips to carry out a good product photography. After doing several searches in the hundreds of articles published. I observed that we had not written anything like it, so I promised to treat it in a future article.
With today's article, I fulfill that promise and I offer you 10 tips so that the next time you consider addressing the product photography you have a good handful of guidelines and recommendations to put into practice so that you can get a good result, how about?
What is Product Photography?
In the introduction, I have assumed that you know what product photography is because you know what it is, right? In case you do not know exactly what it is, we could say that it encompasses those photographs or images through which it is about selling or simply presenting a product.
For example, photographs of electronic components, clothing, automobiles, footwear, food products (such as the right image), etc.
Product photography, therefore, is one that is used to present a certain product and the quality of this photograph will depend on the degree of acceptance and the desire to acquire the product. Hence the importance of these photographs.
Tip # 1: Choose A Neutral Fund
We often get used to not giving enough importance to a fundamental element in our photographs: the background.
Unless you have a fantastic background that you think is going to perfection the product, my recommendation is that you do not complicate and choose a neutral background: white or black are the best usually work. In addition, if the product photo is then intended to be integrated into a web or catalog, the white background, especially, will provide you with a better and easier integration.
You can find support kits with studio funds or specific light boxes for product photography at a very good price. Otherwise, you can also use the "low cost" option: use a sheet, a card or even the white or black parts of a 5 in 1 reflector.
One last piece of advice, both for white and black background, when adjusting the brightness of the shot, verify this brightness through the histogram of the different photographs that you are making.
Tip # 2: Lighting Is Fundamental
Once you have prepared the background and, therefore, the environment in which you will carry out the photographs, the next thing is to adequately prepare the lighting. In this sense, let me offer you some recommendations:
The greater the natural light, the better. If it is possible to make these photographs on the street, the better. Although you may need some element to diffuse the light, having a lot of light and very diffuse is fundamental for product photography.
If you opt for the aforementioned white background, you have different alternatives to achieve it: a softbox if the size of the object allows it, or a background of paper, foam, fabric or even vinyl. If we are talking about a large object, I recommend you take a look at this article in which we show you how to get a completely white background.
If you do not have enough natural lighting, or you just want to have one more point of lighting, you can use lamps or flashes. If this is the case, try to adequately blur the flash or illumination of the same through sheets, papers, umbrellas or more specific accessories. You can find interesting kits, both continuous light, and studio flashes. You can also opt for Strobist photography kits.
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It also values the use of a home or commercial reflector to fill shadows too hard for artificial lighting.
As you can imagine, to achieve "adjust" the operation of all these accessories you will need to perform different tests, but I guarantee that with the use of each of them you can have fantastic lighting.
Tip # 3: Use A Quality Goal
Product photography requires a professional result and for this, it is necessary to have a good lens. An object that provides enough quality for the result to be worthwhile.
Therefore, we will look for a quality zoom lens, or, better and cheaper, a fixed focal length that will allow you to have fantastic features with the best quality/price ratio.
Tip # 4: A Tripod Will Be Very Useful
To achieve the desired result you will have to perform many tests, vary the location of the camera, the product, the camera settings, the properties of the lighting, the background ...
For all this, it will be essential to have a good tripod that allows you to maintain the characteristics of framing and composition and, in addition, offers you that stability that enables greater clarity and longer exposure times values (if necessary).
Therefore, in this type of photography, do not hesitate, always use a tripod. Your photos will thank you. If you also have a remote trigger , or you set the camera to fire after a timer, the better.
Tip # 5: Clean And Prepare The Product
Before starting to pull the trigger it is very appropriate that you properly clean the product so that it looks without a pinch of dirt or dust. And, why not, the camera lens.
It is also possible that you have to place some of the components or parts of the product, vary their position in front of the camera, or even decorate it in some way to achieve a good result.
So do not forget, prepare everything well . It is preferable to have everything in order before taking the pictures that you have to do then wonders with your touch-up application to eliminate imperfections that you could have avoided with due care in the previous phase.
Tip # 6: Set Up The Camera In Manual
Until you reach the desired result you will have to make different adjustments, changes in the location of the accessories, variation of the intensity of artificial lights, focus point, perspective, etc.
For this reason, to have full control of the result, it is more than advisable that you choose the configuration of the camera in manual mode so that you control all the parameters: aperture, exposure time and sensitivity.
With regard to these adjustments only two recommendations: it uses a reduced aperture (f high) to have enough depth of field and uses the lowest possible sensitivity to avoid the appearance of noise.
In addition, I also recommend shooting the flash or flashes in manual mode to have more control of the intensity of the flash and that the focus mode is also manual (so you can adjust it and you can leave it fixed between shots). Also with respect to the approach, if you have Live View, activate it.
Tip # 7: Do not Forget to Perform a Proper White Balance
Product photography must be true to reality (reaching, if possible, to improve it, but not to transform it completely. Of course, to achieve this fidelity it is essential that the colors photographed are those of the product, right?
For this, you should be very careful with an adequate white balance, since, otherwise, the photograph may not be an adequate representation of reality. To achieve this, there are two tips:
Shoot in RAW to be able to vary the white balance in the editing phase without this implying a loss of quality.
Use gray cards to fine-tune the white balance in the editing phase.
Following these two tips, you will be able to respect reality, at least as far as color is concerned with photography and reality.
Tip # 8: Varies Product Position and Perspective
Remember that product photography seeks to sell the product, make it attractive, different, dynamic, desirable. To achieve this, in addition to following the four previous tips, you must offer a different photograph.
Arriving at this different photograph may require you to try different perspectives and angles from which to take the photo, perhaps also having to vary the position of the object: keeping it in motion, placing it diagonally, next to other objects, etc.
| Product Photo Editing |
You can help multiple accessories to modify the position of the object: invisible threads, structures, platforms, etc. Do not discard any option to offer a more attractive position of your product.
Tip # 9: Editing Photography Is Not an Option. It is an obligation
No matter how good the photograph has been, do not rule out at least a brief editing process to:
Adjust the white balance
Define the level of whites and shadows
Apply a slight focus mask
Even, if necessary, a small re-framing
These adjustments will finish polishing a good product photograph and leave it ready to teach all potential customers and leave them with their mouths open.
Tip # 10: Repeat The Process With Several Photographs
I'm not saying you go back to number 1 and start again, what a scare, right?
What I mean is that to achieve a good product photography, you have to discard a few, so when you decide to make a session of this type, try to take different images varying the parameters described lighting, position, perspective, etc. ., to achieve a good range of possibilities.
Once you have all these variants, edit the best and finally, decide for several of the photographs that best present or allow to sell the product.
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