Isolated Photographs

[macdsean]

I have recently become interested in photographing small to medium objects isolated against a white background. To date I have been using a piece of white paper outside in a shady area to get softer light. I then use Photoshop to blow out the white areas and correct contrast and color balance.

Can you suggest any other methods for achieving better, more reliable results? Do light tents work well, and if so which brands? What lenses would you suggest for a Nikon camera to photograph small to medium, close-up objects? Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Camera and lens doesn't matter. If you want to knock out or drop out your background, you need to use lights.

The way I do it is this:

Item on glass, elevated above floor.
On the floor, I have white seamless.
On either side of the glass I nuke the white seamless with two lights that ate at least two stops brighter then my key light.

I then have another light, usually softbox, above the glass onto the subject itself.

If it's a specular object, use black cutters around it to give the edges some separation.

This is straight out of camera, all I did was resize, I didnt' even to anything to the RAW file:

 

[macdsean]

Very nice. The only problem with that method is that the object casts no visible shadow. Maybe that is a good thing, but to me, I like to be able to see that the object is actually sitting on something rather than floating in mid air.

What do others think? Do you prefer a light soft shadow against the background or the "floating" method.

Thanks. Can anyone suggest a good lens for this? I am simply using my kit 18-55mm that came with my Nikon D50. I know another lens isn't required for this type of photography but is there one that would give a better quality image? (i.e. sharper, better color, less distortion)