Product photography. Please help!

[kalleg]

Hi Everyone,

I have been struggling for a while now to make a good setup to register items for my portfolio (i am a graphic designer.) It has really been difficult to get it right. I keep feeling that i don't have enough light. My latest setup consists of:

2x100 W 6400K CFL's on the right side (in two soft boxes)
2x85 W 6400K CFL's in the middle and,
4x85 W 6400K CFL's in a big softbox on the left.
Some white deflectors and a grey backdrop

I'm using a Nikon D200 SLR with a Tokina AT-X 100mm f/2.8 PRO D Macro Lens and a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 on a tripod. I shoot manual mode at ISO100, and around aperture 11-16 to get everything sharp. Shutter times are not too long. I use Sofortbild and Photoshop CS4 on a USB connected mac to control the shoot.

In spite of all my efforts, the result still comes out a bit unsharp. I can't say that i'm happy at all. I have to register 3 years of work, and therefore i would like avoid big amounts of retouch.

I have included an image with the setup and zooms of the result.

I hope someone can give me a few pointers to get it better. This is as far my amateur knowledge gets me. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Regards Kalle

 

[flea77]

First off, most lenses (especially Macro) are sharpest in the center of their apertures. To verify this I did a test with my Nikon 105mm f2.8 Micro and what I saw was that I got the sharpest images at f8, at f16 or above diffraction made things blurry.

Good luck!

Allan

 

[LearnMyShot]

I can help! See this website, it's mine and free
ttp://www.learnmyshot.com/ let me know what you think, thanks