Hey,
I saw a great tutorial in Stefan’s site (you can get the link in my favorites).He have been shooting products (hand made great looking funny dolls ).Stefan uses a professional studio and pro flashes for his work and you can see the diargrams of some of his studio sessions in his blog. I this piece I tried to get as close to his job, using small of camera flashes for this product photography. So get in and learn how to do it on the budget!
Great product photographs in no time and priceless look,this is what you are going to learn in this tutorial!
If you are not familiar with part I of this tutorial take a look in this link amazing product photography where you’ll get an idea about how I did that setup and the basic two light posing atrategies I talked about .
In part II of amazing product photography using the DIY small softbox (based on a shoe box) will cover another two light setups for some differnt effect,so lets see what its all about.
This is one of the shots you’ll get in this tutorial,so get in read and DIY!
Amazing product photography 1$ technique!
If you want to know how to do this easy 1$ (if you have the off camera flashes) dig in there are some examples and outcomes that you wouldn’t imagine how easy it is to do it!!!
For the bset use of this tutorial you should also read the post on how I made those two easy shoe box soft box for portable flashes (DIY small softbox).
So lets start:About the product photography setup-background and surface :I use a black magnet board as the surface the benefits of it are that you can actually use your studio stuff for other uses,I simple take it when I shoot the products.The black background in this case is a bristol black sheet paper glued to the wall/cupboard.This setup will take you about 5 minutes to build.The second step is to setup the flash in their softboxes.I use the main light at the right side of the product photography object (the canon 30D) I usually start on 1/4 of full power (Canon 550EX),the second shadow light is the Canon 580EX that is set at the begging of the shootout on 1/16 of full power and might be stepped up to 1/8 of full power.The last thing is setting the camera,almost always I start at f 1/7.1 , 1/160sec iso 200.Those settings will “kill” all the ambient light in the room and let the flashes rule!
So lets summerise it:
Now lets see what can we produce here!
Product photography setup no.1:
This setup used me for the cover shot on this product photography tutorial.Its one of hte most simple and basic product photography setups available.The main light lights the product photographed,while the second one light from behind with lower power and lights the product curves and lines.This is how I did it:
Product photography setup no.2:
Here we moved the back fill light from setup number one to the front of the product photography object.The effect is different as you can get more details from the front left side of the camera and also maintain the right side domination.Here is the setup used:
Two examples are given for this product photography setup.
For the image above we used the left fill flash on 1/16 of full power.In this case we got much more details on the front left side of the camera and the lens text in the front left side is suddenly showing.If you try to get some details out you’ll also see the top three operation buttons of the camera.In the image below we’ll get the fill flash a stop higher and look what we got:more details!!!
In this setup you extract even more details from the lens,more detail from the cameras top control power(you can actually see that there are four bottons,not three as in the previous picture).
In the next post we’ll explore another two versions of that setup as we’ll move the left light little higher,and in another setup will use only one light to get a more dramatic output.
So stay tuned for more amazing easy to use product photography tutorials and let us know if you have some questions!
Part II now published- easy product photography
Hey this time I bring you a very simple product photography setup,using just one flash (canon 550EX).
We will learn during this tutorial :
So lets start going!
First of all how we did this extremely simple setup?
1.I have at home some old chair that I use as a table for the small products shoots.You can use any thing you see with the same dimensions – a strong carton box,table,chair or anything.As the board for the products I used a metallic billboard that I no longer use.The advantage of the metallic is obvious,It gives the photos some reflection and rough look. I used here a perspex board , about 40cm*40cm that I have.It will help speard the light from the flash unit in a more equal way .I put the on two boxes that I found in a drawer so there will be some margin between the product and the perspex board.
2.As you can see,I used only one flash here and I mounted it on a flash stand just behind the setup and above the perspex board.
You can see the simple product photography setup here (sorry for the picture bad quality,it was a rip from my first video tutorial for youtube.com):
3.Setting up the camera was an easy thing,I generally start with
The first two shots where taken with those settings no reflectors used:
As you can see the results are quit sharp and well exposed.No photoshop used here.But we want to give the shots some more light especially at the bottom.
4.For the extra light we used a hand held white reflector (I mainly use a cheap white foam board,as you can see in other tutorials I did here) .The results are better,the bottom side of the cucumber is brighter and you can so more details on the remote trigger as well:
Thats all for this time.If you wonder , the cucumbers are home made cucumbers that I grow in my backyard GREAT!!!
Please share your thoughts and examples here.
Many times I’m asked how those kind of pictures are taken.I must say that at the beginning I thought that it was a much more complicated process.Actually that when I show this picture to my wife she didn’t believed me that it is mine until I show her the KONICA camera her self.Join this tutorial and read how easy it is to do it!
This post will get you step by step for the final result: a great looking product photo.The product is on a white panel,but the background will be painted with other color that you choose.Here is a little sample of what you can get by using the simple DIY projects done in previous articles.
So lets start with the what you need list:
Lets get going:
Follow the setup in the picture bellow-
Some additional tips:
Here are some sample pictures made with this setup,as you may think there are infinite variation for your fun and games.
With reflections:
Without reflections:
Again two examples for the reflection that can be made just by adding a perspex board to the setup.
Now its your time to show as your photos and tests for such a simple setup!Link your photos in the comments section below.
Here is another basic product photography with one flash light shooting through the DIY SoftBox we made earlier.
This time we are shooting a bottle of Drabuie (whom would have been already empty unless I planed to shoot it…) on a black background.
The ingredients:
Setup the studio as you can see in the setup pictures.Softbox at one side of the bottle a bit in front of it.I took the first shot at about ISO200,f/8 1/160sec and the flash (Canon 430EX) at about a 1/4 power.I used the Canon 100mm macro (my best advise is to get one if your shooting Canon Dslrs) .From here you should manage yourself just fine,if the picture get a little to dark power up the flash a notch and you’ll be done.
Here are two examples for this setup:
In this setup we added a white reflector to the left side of the bottle.By adding the white reflector we added some lights to that side of the bottle and not keeping it in the dark as in the second picture.As you can see the white reflector also adds some lights to the black background.
Experiment this setup and enjoy your results!
And please share your pictures with us and leave links to your work in the comments section below.
The stuff you need for this setup:
Here are two suggested options to this type of cheap photography:
Take two minutes to put this setup:
Here are some results for this setup:
Only right light is on:
Only left light is on:
Top reflector and both lights are on:
Enjoy!Please keep in mind that those photos are not substance for hiring a pro photographer.
Easy to do small DIY product photography setup with home made lighting stuff.
Simple studio product photography setup that will get this:
You probably heard the words: “one pictures worth thausends words”…Yep today you must have good pictures of your products in order that the potential web costumer wil shop and buy in your shop!In this lesson I’ll try to show the basics of products photography and how you can do it well with almost basic equipment!
Our role model this time will be the Konica C35 film camera,who looks flewless but lacks of a battery so its days of glory are over for now (not mentioning I use the Pentax SpotMatic SP insteed).So it will be my model for lets say an online used camera on eBay.
What you’ll learn in this tutorial:
What you’ll need:
Lets start!
