Product photography
21.5.2008  |   Add comment   |   No comments  |  Permalink
Current year has gone pretty much with wedding photography for me, but I got inspiration to do some product photography for a change. After reading various sources on the internet about product photography I thought I was ready to try it myself using this tips I read about.

If you want to take pictures of, let say, perfume and cologne, you get little bit more kick if you use reflective base onto which you place the product. You can make the background from a sheet of paper or perhaps use live backgrounds. Following is what I did to get pictures like these in this post.

On the table I place different colored paper sheets underneath a glass. behind this glass I placed a background (DIY backdrop) about 20 cm from the edge of the glass. I placed the bottle of perfume so that some of the reflection would get into the picture.

I used two softboxes, one on each side of the bottle about 30 cm from it facing each other. Third flash was directed toward the backdrop to bring out some seperation.

I used 1/60s @ f/11 with ISO 100. The focal point was 75mm. By adjusting the aperture I found a correct exposure and by adjusting the shutter speed I fine tuned the exposure of the backdrop.

I really didn't have to do much in post-processing except cleaning out dust and scratches on the glass. This is something that becomes really visible when lighting a glass layer. You really have to remember not to touch the glass with your fingers before the shoot.

I decided to extend my gear for product photography and ordered following items from eBay:

- Color gels, 20 euros
- 80x80x80cm light tent, 30 euros including postage.

I am still searching for an acryllic riser that would have both white and black finnishing. I have found some local companies that sell these, but the price for a hobbyist is quite big.

Over all product photography was very nice experience and will do it again. One thing that is nice, is that a bottle of perfume will sit in front of your camera for as long as you want without complaining.

Below are some results from my product photography this time. With some more time and effort I could've add more details, droplet and have more idea behind the pictures, but still I learned a lot.