Product Photography > Eyewear

[martintreacy]

Hi,

I would really appreciate some advice. I'm making a catalogue for my parents, and I cannot produce good enough quality photographs.

Here is an example.

Here is an image from the manufacturers catalogue, this would be the level I want to achieve:

Here is my best effort after photo shop.
The only thing I have done is make brigter.

Here is the orginal before post production:

Camera: Canon EIS 40D, Lens: EF-S 17- 85mm
- I have a "light box" which i place the product in
- I set the white balance to custom, using a the white sheet.
- I set the aperture to as small as possible to increase the focus depth (so the front and the back of the eye wear frames are in focus)
- I leave the exposure set to auto.
- No flash.

Problems:
- In photoshop, when i lighten the images, you will notice that the detail of the bridge pieces (what sit against your nose) are lost.
- Also when shooting rimless frames, the edges of the lenses disappear when the photo is lightened up.

Is there any way to get the white background to be white, so I dont need to lighten using photoshop? or any other advice?

Thanks!

 

[Don Kondra]

It would be appreciated if you downsized your images to no more than 800 pixels wide.

What is the color temp of the lights you are using ?

Show us a shot of the set up.

How and at what point are you focusing ?

I'm not familiar with your lens, you may be past the "sweet spot". Try some shots @ f7 - f11...

For now you might want to try black reflectors on the sides, that will give the glass some definition.

Cheers, Don

 

[GeneralBenson]

You're at f/32, 1/13th and iso 1600. Those are pretty bad setting. Are you using a tripod? the image is pretty soft, which could be due to all three setting, camera shake from low shutter speed, aperture diffraction from minimum aperture, and noise from high iso.

 

[KmH]

They used a light table and a light box.

They have light coming from underneath the frames. It looks like they have light coming from 6 different angles.

The photography was llikely done by a professional with hundreds of hours of experience doing product photography. The pro likely has at their disposal, 10's of thousands of dollars worth of studio photography and lighting equipment.

 

[D-B-J]

They used a light table and a light box.

They have light coming from underneath the frames. It looks like they have light coming from 6 different angles.

The photography was llikely done by a professional with hundreds of hours of experience doing product photography. The pro likely has at their disposal, 10's of thousands of dollars worth of studio photography and lighting equipment.

+1

 

[Derrel]

The original looks like only four light sources to me; transilluminated frosted glass shooting table, with light coming in from below the table's top. Softbox camera right. Softbox above the shooting table. Softbox directly in front of the glasses. All perfectly balanced. Like KmH said....only 10's of thousands of dollars in lighting gear, and hundreds of hours of product lighting and shooting experience!

Your attempt is not all "that bad". If you used a lower ISO setting, the technical quality of the image would be better. And your white balance looks pretty much off-kilter. Using a lower ISO,like 100, and a much longer shutter speed would be acceptable; use a remote release or the camera's self-timer to avoid jarring the camera, and use longer exposures. You'll probably need to be stopped down to f/22 to f/32 to pull depth of field from that shooting distance with that image size on the glasses.

The whole thing about metal is that angle of incidence of the lighting sources creates the reflections, which give us the impression/visual clues as to the shape and texture of the metal. Also, that sticker the manufacturer has on the one lens really adds a nice depth clue. I see a LOT of small-product photos done with these new light tents, and while the effects are okay to good, the fixed angles of the tent walls pre-determine where the light will be coming in from; that makes these types of simple light-tent devices good for basic lighting suitable for e-commerce type product shots, but the fact is, HIGH-QUALITY, fully professional level small-product (and indeed, ALL product) photography is about precise control and manipulation of the light--its angle, direction,intensity,character, and the types of reflections that lighting creates on the surface(s) of the product.

If you want to equal the professional shot, LOCK the camera down on a tripod, and move reflectors and or lights around at various angles, while looking through the camera or while feeding the image to a monitor, and you will be able to literally "See" how the placement of a front light will create reflections on the front planes of the frames. Then you can place a light camera-right, and get it positioned just so, so that it creates the reflection on the right hand temple of the frames. And so on.

Skilled Photoshop artists can help in creating fake highlights, but this can also be done all in-camera too. It's not exactly rocket science. There are some very good books written on small-product photography and how to do it.

 

[kkamin]

Good first attempt. I personally like GeneralBenson and Derrel's advice a lot.

You don't need 10k of gear to get this shot, rather a more controlled set-up and an understanding of how the surfaces are interacting with your lighting.

You have a good start. And if there is an immediate deadline, you could probably even shoot how you are now, and rescue the images in post if you know a skilled Photoshop user. This isn't perfect, I didn't spend too much time on it, but I did this with your original image. (I needed a break from my own stuff, hope you don't mind me playing around). : )