Taking product pictures

mikeshinobi

mikeshinobi

Throbbing Member
Nov 15, 2011
1,495
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Indiana, US
mattcutts.com
I remember seeing a thread on here a long time ago about taking pictures of products for ecom sites... and in it someone posted a really helpful thing where he had pictures of his set up where he made a little tent thing out of paper or something and diffused the lighting somehow so the pictures turned out nice.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I tried to search but didn't find shit.
 


product-photography-studio.jpg


When I used to sell on eBay, I did something like this for the pictures. Worked great.
 
That or even a light box. Just build a box frame. use a piece of paper as shown above to drape from top to front. Then cover top, left, right with semi-transparent paper (kinda like tracing paper). Add lights like above and your styling.

Obviously depends what your taking shots of. Working with Jewelry items for example can be a pain if you don't have the right presentation stands.
 
emp said:
ah shit... I did that getto setup.. lemme search for it

http://www.wickedfire.com/shooting-shit/118449-started-traditional-ecom-business-2.html#post1205909

Now I got an inexpensive foldup flash tent from Amazon and use that.

::emp::
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aha! there it is. Thanks emp. And thanks everyone else for your responses. I guess I'll just check out one of these flash tent things though if they aren't too expensive. I'd love to be able to outsource it to the pros ayzo suggested but fancy stuff like that is still in the future for me.
 
I like your setup emp, nice one!

If I were you mike I'd get one of those cheap light box on amazon or ebay, something like this: [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Concepts-Ps-101-Portable-Lighting/dp/B000FBF400/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1346625381&sr=1-1&keywords=Portable+Lighting+Studio"]Amazon.com: Digital Concepts Ps-101 Portable Lighting Studio: Electronics[/ame]
 
What I use for a lightbox is a larger clear tupperware container set on its side. Cram a piece of white posterboard in there and you are more or less good to go.
 
Similar to post # 2. I have a Nikon D7000 and primarily use my tokina 12-24. I do alot of underwater photography, but one of my good friends sells shit on ebay that he manufactures (car racks, like for snowboards, etc). So I can confirm that he does # 2 and has a nice camera. I also owned a company prior to what I do now taking pictures of ladies. That camera in pic 2 sucks a bag of dicks, but each to his own. If you have any questions, pm me
 
I picked up a popup light box with 2 lights and mini tripod for just $39 on saveology.com a few weeks ago. Also like others have mentioned, amazon's got the goods too. I'm thinking of getting a large greenscreen and larger lights next to take pics of bigger stuff and people.
Something like this or similar

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003TY9SES/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1346644900&sr=8-6]Chromakey Green Screen Kit 1000 Watt Video Lighting Kit Photo Studio Kit Umbrella Softbox Kit By Fancier:Amazon:Camera & Photo[/ame]
 
I also use a Popup light-tent now, and that is about 50 bucks on amazon (if even that).
The ghetto setup was because I was interested in it, and to be honest, I only changed the setup because I wanted something I could fold up and store in a small place. The pictures are as good with the cheapo setup.

::emp::
 
I bought some clamp on shop lights from Ikea and some bulbs while I was there. I use a spare table, an off white sheet and a posterboard.

Works pretty well and I have done some work in a studio.

If you wanted the background a little better you could use a roll of white paper and roll it from the top on a stand.
 
Fatbat said:
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a point and shoot, Canon Elph, Coolpix, or similar, for product photography. You don't have to go invest in a DSLR to get good photos.
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I bought a samsung and used it for 3 years, BEST FUCKING CAMERA EVER. Cost me $249 and I dropped the bitch like a million gazillion times. Took over 50,000 photos with the bad boy.
 
Fatbat said:
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a point and shoot, Canon Elph, Coolpix, or similar, for product photography. You don't have to go invest in a DSLR to get good photos.
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Sure you do... You think I bought it because the "body only" (without lens) cost $1400 and I wanted to be better than others? I've always been a Nikon Guy, I've had the d3000, d90, d5000 and now d7000. Prior to these though, I've always had those point and shoots (casio, nikon, etc. etc). They suck horribly. The shutter rates are really fucked off... you cant take pictures at night... There's so many more options on these dslr's compared to those.. Those point and shoots are popular to the masses because they're cheap. The higher end stuff is for professional, nice looking photography.
 
A few years back I made a folding frame out of 1" PVC pipe and used a white sheet and posterboard. Added a few clamp on utility lights and it worked great. Plus the whole rig costs around 30.00 or so.

A dslr is great and that's what I normally shoot with but unless you're shooting for stock a point and shoot is plenty for web images.
 
The tents work really good but the setup of lights is the most important. That post of the 3 lights directly on the subject is not the way to get a good shot. Alot of it depends upon what your shooting, a beer bottle is much different than a diamond ring. DSLR has it's advantages if you need some macro capabilities. Getting a good picture takes practice with lights, but understanding light reflection is key. Get some white and black foam board to bounce/suppress light. Look in magazines and look closely at ad's for watches and rings, notice the angles of light, best advice I've been given about product shooting.

I shot this for fun in a tent, two lights with a Canon 40d. With a DSLR if you shoot in RAW you have total control to process the image vs a P&S jpeg image.

adamx12m-albums-stupidstuff-picture1268-img-2345.jpg
 
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