Advice for product photography lighting

[hannahb2012]

hello all, I have my own website selling leather products and for the past four or five years, i've been taking the pictures with a simple point and click camera, white cardboard background and natural daylight for lighting. it's getting to the point where i'm looking for proper equipment, i.e. lightbox, lighting and camera. Where do i start? a lightbox should be pretty easy but what would you guys recommend for the lights? What wattage, and what brand would be best? I don't want to pay loads but i don't want something that will fall to bits. Also could you guys recommend a good camera for crisp product photography, i think i'm after a digital single lens camera as the interchangeable lens are too fussy for me. One last question... i have a very strong blue overtone in my pics, i take a lot of picturs of tan bags and they end up looking green which does my head in. I'd be interested to know how you avoid this. thanks in advance,

 

[tirediron]

First off, the colour issues are almost certainly related to white-balance. Read the related tutorials here. In a nutshell, your light is one colour and your camera is set to record another. The best way to deal with this is to set a custom white balance, and shoot in RAW, two things many point and shoot style cameras can't do. If you read your camera's manual, there should be white-balance adjustments however which will let you get very close.

As to the camera, I would recommend an entry-level DSLR. Just because it has the option of using different lenses, doesn't mean you have to, but it will give you infinitely more control and better quality images than you can get from a P&S. Any Canon Rebel, Nikon xx00, or entry-level Pentax or Sony will be fine.

You don't say if you only shoot bags, but check out eBay; there are lots of light tents which are ideal for this sort of thing, ranging in price from ~$100 - 1000 depending on size and quality. They will normally come with lights of appropriate colour temperature and strength for the size of the box.

 

[STM]

You can build an inexpensive "light tent" for less than $30. I built one using PVC pipe and used a twin sized sheet sewn in half and used as a diffuser over it. Get a half roll of white background paper and some continuous lights (or compact 100WS strobes like I have here) and you are set.



As for a camera, any basic DSLR should be adequate for what you need.

 

[eltif26]

STM, Does the light above the box make a big difference?

My light box set just came with 2 side lights.

 

[Helen B]

Are lightbox pictures what you want? What sort of pictures are you seeing in the places you would like your products to be? What sort of pictures would make you want to buy?

I work as a commercial product photographer so I pay a lot of attention to the answers to those questions. Lightbox-type images generally don't go viral as well as other styles - styles that have more of a feeling to them. It's good if people like your photography so much that they want to include your product photos on their blog, Facebook page, Pinterest, Google+, print magazine etc. As the old saying goes: Don't sell the sausage, sell the sizzle. (This seems to have been misunderstood by some web marketing people, who forget the sausage. You are selling the sizzle and showing the sausage. Don't forget to show them your sausage.)

If you do decide that lightbox photos are the right thing, then please think about moving the light or lights - don't just leave it or them in the same place for every image. You can vary the intensity of the light coming through different parts of the lightbox to best show whatever you are showing.

I use plain household incandescent lightbulbs in a big softbox for most of my work - only using flash if I need to freeze action or use live models (even then there are models who prefer to work under gentle continuous light than flash). I usually use a single light source and a few white or silver reflectors, and, just as important, black flags and cutters as necessary.

 

[Roger3006]

Thanks Helen

Anyone present sausage (bacon where I come from) and make it look like sausage. Illustrating the sizzle is what gets attention. I photograph firearms. Someone can use a point and shoot to show the condition and features of almost anything. The art it to cause them to "have to have it.

Keep on sizzling.

<img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa167/rgravis/Parker_Briley/Parker_Briley_50of19.jpg"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa167/rgravis/Colt Anaconda/Anaconda4122of1.jpg"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa167/rgravis/Colt Anaconda/Anaconda4130of1.jpg">


Roger

 

[cellogracee]

The first thing to do when preparing for lightning photography is to set the camera to manual mode. Since all the preparations are done in a dark environment the camera can not automatically set the right focus, exposure and aperture.