I need advice for improving my product photography.

[Jimmy Nguyen]

Hi, my name is Jim. My wife and I sell really really cheap baby clothes and we don't need fancy product photography so I shoot product photos myself at home.
I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and shoot flat flay to simplify the process. The quality of the photo is good enough for us (the color, the sharpness, the brightness...and I can always change those in post-processing).
However, because of my setup, I get uneven light in my photo. You can see that it is brighter in the middle and lesser the bright the nearer to the edges.

This is my setup. I have 2 softboxes but only use 1 box (LED light bulbs, 6 0w, 5500k).

How/Where should I place my softboxes so that I can achieve even brightness like the SAMPLE photo I attached? Thank you very much for your help.
View attachment 182862

 

[Designer]

Since you have two softboxes, position each of them over one end of the garment. The middle will get light from both light sources, and therefore should be equal brightness or nearly so. Your camera will look between the softboxes. Experiment with the light placement.

 

[Jimmy Nguyen]

Thank you for your reply. I have tried many different placements prior to the current setup. Placing 2 soft-boxes at each end make 2 ends brighter than the middle part. Placing 2 soft-boxes at each end but put them higher up and point them downward to my product makes the area that has overlapped light from the 2 soft boxes much brighter than the rest. Also other different placements sometime create unwanted shadow. Is there a problem with my current soft boxes or light bulbs? Should I change them to something else that will solve the problem?

 

[tirediron]

"Sample Image" removed. Please do not post images to which you do not hold rights.

 

[tirediron]

Thank you for your reply. I have tried many different placements prior to the current setup. Placing 2 soft-boxes at each end make 2 ends brighter than the middle part. Placing 2 soft-boxes at each end but put them higher up and point them downward to my product makes the area that has overlapped light from the 2 soft boxes much brighter than the rest. Also other different placements sometime create unwanted shadow. Is there a problem with my current soft boxes or light bulbs? Should I change them to something else that will solve the problem?

Your lights are too close to the subject and you're being affected by the inverse square law which states that light falls off at a rate which is the inverse square of the distance between the source and the subject, or in plain English, every time you move the light x feet away, the intensity of the light on the subject reduces by 2x. To get around this, you need to move your lights far enough away so that the fall off (reduction in light intensity) is no longer a factor. This does require stronger lights ,and if you're using a couple of constant light Amazon specials, they may not do the job.

 

[Jimmy Nguyen]

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. Can you please recommend me a better soft boxes and light bulb for this purpose?

 

[Dao]

Try to move the light higher and see if that make a difference.

 

[Solarflare]

Err ... you photograph PRODUCTS.

Just use a tripod, which you should do anyway for product photography, and you can use as long exposures as you want ?

Only tripods assert you get the maximum sharpness.

 

[Christie Photo]

...use a tripod... and you can use as long exposures as (necessary)

Good advice.

But too.... you have created some really flat light. I suspect it would be good to communicate the texture of your products.

As for the fall-off of light toward the edges, I don't find it to be as objectionable (or important) as you. Do you have experience with any photo editing software? This little bit of difference should be an easy fix.

Good goin' ! You're off to a wonderful start!

-Pete