Somehow you don’t have to own an online ebay shop in order to be interested in product photography.It simply a common task to do when you start to explore your photography.You don’t have to ask a model to participate in a shootout, you can do it in your bedroom or living room, you can use studio strobes or a simple reading lamp.

So I can’t put the finger why, but every one will do that in one way or an other.

Surfing over flicker.com (which is a great site for photography inspiration) I found this simple setup which I thinks beats my simple product photography tutorial. All this guy uses is a couple of papers arranged in a simple “box” setup for white background and reflector. The only downside for this is that it will suit only small product as this setup is small. Shooting this lens that he did is already to big. So check it out and start learning and experimenting!

Credit for Josh Liba.

Here is a link to Josh’s Flickr gallery: Josh Liba

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Panning is a very nice and simple photographic effect, that is very simple to implement.I’m pretty sure had some panning in your photography even if you didn’t want to.For getting the panning effect right you have to follow the basic steps that I’ll talk about in the following post, the base for a prefect panning is slow shutter speed,not to slow and not to fast.

Get in to read more:

So what should you do to get a great panning? simple:

1. Set your camera to Tv (Time variant) control, so you’ll the control for the time the shutter will be open.
2. Do some tests to get the idea about the perfect time.The picture of the motor cycles in this post where taken about 1/8th sec – 1/15th sec.Those object where moving about 30km/hour and about 20m away from me, so if you are about to photograph faster moving vehicles or taking the panning pictures closer you should make the exposure for about 1/60th-1/30th sec.
3. Test and improve- Change your shutter speed and compostion for better panning photographs.
4. How to take the picture? set the focus on the moving object,drag the shutter and while dragging the shutter, pan with the moving object.
5. Follow the object – start following the object some period before  you drag the shutter and continue your movement a brief moment after the shutter has dropped. This will prevent surprises and will make you movement more smooth as you take the picture.
6. You a tripod – To get sharp it will be a nice idea to use a tripod or monopod for extra sharpness.
7. Test and improve- Change your shutter speed and compostion for better panning photographs.

Here are some examples of pannings that I took while we where traveling in Italy, only there you’ll find so “sexy” scooters for your panning photographs.Share your tips and pictures with as!!!

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Lately I find it very fun to shoot some films with old and not automatic film cameras. I find it a joy to use those metallic old age cameras, and the look of the developed photographs is something different from the digital cameras too. There is something about the film you use instead of the digital sensor, and I think much of the difference in the outcome is about the optics. They definitely used different glass back then, no L DG or any other marks on the lens, but simple 50mm f/1.4 manual and thats all!!!.

Some of the cameras that I own has built in light meters, in my Russian Zenith ET the light meter doesn’t work any more and in my Pentax the light meter works, but only with a battery the is very hard to find in Israel.

So I got my self the light meter my father used some 20 years ago, when there where no alternatives or built in light meters. The only thing was that he didn’t really remember how to operate it. After some research here is my “crash manual” on how to use your old light meter.

For starters, this is my light meter, an old Weimar Lux nova.

How to operate your old light meter:

1. first of all,set your film ISO speed (figure 1).Move the brown circle to match the film speed.In the image it is set to 200ISO or 24DIN (probably the eastern European method).
2. Point the light meter front panel to the direction you want to take the light meter from.
3. In the bottom of the light meter the is a needle that will move when you direct the meter to different light scenes.The number the needle will point to is the exposure number the meter took.In figure 2 you’ll that the needle is pointing on something between 4-5 (4.6+-).
4. Move the big white circle, so the small arrow in the little gray window will point on the number the needle shows.
5. Now you got the camera settings you need on the top of the light meter. You could choose on of the suggested settings .Figure 3 shows that if you set the camera on aperture f/1.4 then you’ll have to set the shutter speed to 1/500th sec.

Thats all!!!

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

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If you’ll get some architectural or lifestyle magazine you see that most of the pictures have the same “look” and many things in common:

• Almost all of the indoor architectural photographs look as shot with available light.
• Images are sharp with good depth .
• Some parts look a bit over exposed.

So if you ask yourself how to get those results, here are my tips for better Indoor architectural photography:

• Use a wide angle lens. to get all the room in the frame, use a wide angle lens. 24mm for FF camera (17mm APS-c ) will be a must in that type of photography. If  you can rent or borrow perspective control lens, which will get you strait lines instead of curved walls at the corners of the frame (with normal lens, even the best ones) .
• Use available light. To get the natural photo look use the available light. Even in places that don’t offer to much f that light you’ll have to manuver your equipment to get as much light as possible. The majority of pictures that I see don’t use flashes or strobes for the set.If you’ll take 90% of the IKEA cataloge you’ll sunshine rooms , so get it natural with ambient light.
• Small aperture. Of course you want the room to be sharp and crisp with no out focused areas. Thats why you will want to get your aperture small as possible. No less than f/11! It will be very important if you want your architectural photographs to look  sharp.
• High ISO. This will help you get more natural light in the picture and smaller aperture. If you use a resent  DSLR camera you shouldn’t be afraid to get a good clean image even at 800ISO.
• Long exposures. After the first two tips, here comes the number one tip, why you won’t need to use flash strobes. Take long exposures, as long as 2 seconds isn’t unusual for that type of photography. The long exposures will let great natural light in the frame, sometimes just one big windows and the home lights will be enough. If there are people in the frame (the house owners) ask them to try to stand still for the exposure, to make it look as if its not a long exposure picture.
• Use tripod. A tripod will help you get those long exposures sharp.
• Use a remote trigger. When having long exposure, you will want to eliminate the shakes you will cause when pressing the shutter release button. Use a remote trigger if possible. If you don’t have on, just set the shutter delay option.

More tips:

HDR. If you don’t have any light in the room or just a small window that won’t get you light for the entire room, try to use the HDR technique.

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Here are the basics steps to connect your umbrella softbox to a small camera flash.

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I use for most of  my photographs one of my two Canon 40D. When the Canon 5DMkII got out to the market, there where plenty of the 5DMkI available for sale as second hand cameras. I had a big strugle what to do whether to get a copy of the 5DMkI to couple with my 40D or to keep the 40D instead.

The 5D advantages are clear:

• Full Frame camera.
• 12MP.
• Very nice depth of field.
• 100% View finder.

The 40D advantages are clear too

• Better focus speed.
• More up to date DIGIC processor.
• Bigger and much better LCD screen.

So recently someone popped that question in one of the forums that I visit in. My reply was: I rather keep the 40D and if there will be an upgrade it will be to the 5DMkII or the Canon 7D. But a very good photographer made a test between those cameras, see it yourself, it will help you decide if you are in the same problem (APS-C Vs. FF).

PS

The test run by Allon Kira on of the best Macro and nature photographers that I know!!!

Allon Kira

Get in to check the rest of the test :

Share your thoughts on this test with us.

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Get in and read my easy and simple tips on how make that simple diy photography of stormy lightning.

First of all I have a disclaimer : this photo was take hand held in my back yard,while I’m in my house, so it looks OK, but if you want to make much better pictures, follow those tips.

General tips for shooting great lightning photographs:

1. Camera – really any digital camera with manual exposure could take great printable lightning photographs, ANY CAMERA.
2. Wider is better – As many aspects pf landscape photography most of lightnings photographs you see online where made with a wide angle lens, go as wide as you can!
3. Tripod – As you’ll read next you are about to take long exposures, in that case you’ll have to put your camera on a good tripod. Although I took the picture above hand held, it will be much better if you use a tripod!
4. Exposure (part I) – You should aim for long exposures as possible. A long exposure will be anything over 5 second, above 5 seconds you’ll be able to take those photographs.In fact you’ll better aim for more than that.Taking a 20 seconds exposure will let you put in one frame more that one lightning stroke and if you go for a minute of more you’ll be able to record an entire storm.You’ll have to remember that the longer your exposure will be , the better your chances to get more lightnings into your frame! You could do it with shorter times, but 5 seconds will be a minimum time.
5. Exposure (part I) – if you are shooting in the dark you could go for something about f/11. If there is some daylight for will have to go even more to f/18-22. As you want less ambient light in your frame (In case you want your photo to be dark ).
6. Guess – If  you know there is going to be a happy stormy evening, take a look at the sky before you start to take those pictures. Have a good idea where the storm is going to come from, before you lock your camera and tripod.
7. Location – If you know the weather and have some time, plan your location somewhere open and out of the city if you want to get a clean frame. If you want your frame to be with some urban touches, you could  find a location where your frame will  contain some urban touch.
8. Safety – You know , there is that thing about lightning 100000000000000000000000volts punch. Read some instructions about safety before you run out to catch them.
9. Staying dry – If you decide to shoot outside, think about somewhere dry and safe of rain. You wouldn’t want your new Canon 5DMKII to get wet so early…

Have fun, When you’ll get your first lightning recorded in a frame its such a joy!!!after the first one start you work on improvements .

If you are interested in weather photography you might want to check that site for more tips and stuss

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A good picture will generate more traffic to you store and will probably will get you  better conversion rate,that means in simple words MORE MONEY!!!

Here I’ll cover the basics of how to shot a good picture with a low budget studio equipment.One light tent and three flash units might cost you less than  90$.Get this and you’ll be ready for your eBay product photography homebased studio.

In this session I’ll explain you guys here how to use a simple cheap light tent a 80cm big for your photographs to put on eBay.This a relatively big light tent to use,but it will get you great results for also medium size products as well as small ones.This box costs about 20USD maybe less,so it will be a wast not to get one if you shoot more that a couple of products .In this set I used three flash lights,I use Canon based system but there are some less expensive alternatives on the net for flashes,some starts about 20USD.That means you could get a great worth of value package for your product photography studio at about 80USD more or less.

So how I set up the set?Easy 5 minutes and you are done!!!

• Open the light tent (well that is easy).
• get the lights stand in rear,right and left side of the light tent.Manual mode.1/8 of maximum power.
• camera on tripod set on my favorite setting : iso400, 1/125sec,f/11.
• start shoot and and see how you need to change the settings in order to get better results.

This is what you’ll get just after 5 minutes of work.

In the first picture the left flash fired on a very low power,the result of that low power can be seen in less details on the product left side.One down side for this photograph is that you’ll have to photoshop out the less lightened part of the picture.

In the second eBay product photograph example , we set the left flash to fire.You can immediately can see the influence of that flash.There is still some photoshop to do to make that picture perfect.but its a good one for your eBay product photo.

Fine tuning will be done with photoshop and you are ready to publish it in your eBay online shop!

In addition to 5 minutes of photoshop maneuvers and you get a high quality eBay product photograph!

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When I took the box from the self I said to myself ,”hey that’s a great photo on the box I want to do that too!”

Here  is one of the first  pics that I took:

Get In and read the rest of the story (I bet you’ll want those chocolate cookies too)!

So The first thing I’ll like to show you guys is the setup:

As you can see the cookie photograph was token at home in my back office.The camera on tripod,the cookies on a white table plate,the plate is on white plastic perspex panel that I love so much and use in many of my product photographs.As for the lighting ,there was an opened door on the left side of the plate and the is a semi opened window that you can see in the picture behind the computer screen.That simple and that easy!By the way the golden reflector has no influence on the picture…

After I thought about how to shoot the set,I started to test the lighting for the cookies photographs.If I use chocolate or some melting objects on the set I test the light on some object with about the same size as the cookies I’m going to shoot.This is the the testing shot:

Take in mind that the cookie photographs taken in this set is under regular in home light,natural light I set the camera to a high 1000ISO and started with shallow depth of field of f/2.8 and 1/80th sec.This will get me the nice dramatic look as in the picture that is shown in the post header.Here are some other examples with those settings f/2.8:

In the next cookies photographs I changed the depth of field of  f/5.6, this lets me more details from the cookie and the props I used to give the picture more interest.Please take in mind that that I slowed down the shutter speed to 1/25th sec.I used a tripod which you’ll must use unless you have more light in the scene.I also used a timer to reduce camera shake.This is what we got out from the cookies shoot:

Here it is for  this set,I really hope you enjoyed reading.Please share your thoughts and pictures with us.

PEACE

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When you get into some mixed light scene your camera auto WB (White Balance)  metering system might loose its north.Therefor when I shoot wedding or commercial events I’m looking for some more accurate WB measuring system.

Two of the most popular tools are the Gray card and the Lens cap.

The gray card is a simple gray card that as you take a picture of it in the scene you are shooting will help the camera manually set the WB.The lens cap is a cap that you put on your lens and and it suppose to white blank the camera.After you take a picture with the lens cap on you can set the manual WB.

There are some white balance lens cap that sell on ebay for about 5$.I wanted to test that with the more old fashion gray card.So lets see what wee got here:

So what is my conclusion?

• The Lens cap gave me to cold WB.
• The camera auto WB was to warm.
• The Grey card WB was more natural colored .

The winner:Gray card!!!

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