Product Photography-- PLEASE HELP!!

nikomatic

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Hello,

I'm new to the forum and hoping to get a little help/advice.

I'm trying to shoot some clothing for a website and I'm really struggling to get professional results. I've bought a basic lighting kit from B@H. Specifically the Impact Three-Light Mini-Boom Kit. This has seemed to help my photos, but I feel like the colors are coming out strange- really red. When I do the auto corrects in Photoshop the images look better, but the corrects make the clothing color fairly dark and not accurate. I don't want to have to do too much more photoshop work if I can avoid it because I need the pictures to be fairly consistent- I have about 15 items to shoot.

Can someone please help put a newbie on the correct path or at the very least a more stable path. Please see some of the specifications and examples of images below.

Nikon D-50- I know old!!
Shooting on Auto

using 3 Impact Three-Light Mini-Boom Kit
Bulbs include- 2 (500W/120V)
1 (250W/120V)
product page here: Impact Three-Light Mini-Boom Kit 401470 B&H Photo Video

I'm fairly happy with the overall quality and sharpness of the picture it's really just the color that I need to figure out at this point and any other pointers for a newbie would be much appreciated.

Thanks so much in advance for any help or insight!
 

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Yes, custom white balance will fix that.

Also, unrelated to your question, it might help to backlight whatever your white surface is that you're shooting on, assuming that it is at all transparent. Like if it is thin plastic or something, putting an umbrella with a light a couple feet behind it, to make it a lot whiter and easier to remove shadows in the white, or just make it whiter in general.
 
Just to add to the conversation, you'll get more consistency if you take your camera off of auto and go manual. The lights determine the exposure in conjunction with your aperture. The shutter speed would control the ambient lighting which in your situation you want to eliminate.
 
Ok, great- I'm going to set a custom white balance and give it another shot. I did buy one of the white plastic cards from B&H, but wasn't sure how to use it, so I didn't. I'll look into it this evening and reshoot.

Thanks for the tip on the backlight. I'm actually just shooting on the floor and using white paper I purchased from B&H for the background. I don't mind the shadows, but I would like the background to be whiter, so I'll play around with setting up a light to brighten the background surface.

Thanks for all your help and insight! It is much appreciated! Will let you know how it goes.
 
Just to add to the conversation, you'll get more consistency if you take your camera off of auto and go manual. The lights determine the exposure in conjunction with your aperture. The shutter speed would control the ambient lighting which in your situation you want to eliminate.

Thanks for the advice....Do you suggest I shoot in Manual mode or one of the other modes such as Aperture? I feel like getting into the settings such as shutter speed, aperture, etc. may be getting in a little over my head at the moment, but will give it a shot.
 
Your best option will be to shoot in manual. That way, you can adjust your settings to where you are getting good exposure, and then keep it there for consistent results. The problem with auto modes (anything but manual) is that the metering (and thus the exposure) may change from shot to shot...depending on what you put in front of the camera.

So put the camera in manual and do some trial and error until you get the exposure that you want.
 
It still boggles my mind how many people join, go straight to ask a question (which theres absolutely nothing wrong with ), but a great % is about a service they are providing. Aren't you supposed to know how to do something before you go and tell people that you do that. And it's usually such a basic knowledge photography question.
 
Your best option will be to shoot in manual. That way, you can adjust your settings to where you are getting good exposure, and then keep it there for consistent results. The problem with auto modes (anything but manual) is that the metering (and thus the exposure) may change from shot to shot...depending on what you put in front of the camera.

So put the camera in manual and do some trial and error until you get the exposure that you want.

Thanks for the tips, I have noticed quite a bit of light variation between different shots using auto, especially when zooming in and out.
 
It still boggles my mind how many people join, go straight to ask a question (which theres absolutely nothing wrong with ), but a great % is about a service they are providing. Aren't you supposed to know how to do something before you go and tell people that you do that. And it's usually such a basic knowledge photography question.

I don't take offense to this, but just to be clear this is a personal project that I'm working on, not a service I'm trying to provide or sell. Anyhow I realize it's probably annoying having people asking a lot of newbie questions here all of the time, so I apologize for my bluntness, but appreciate everyone's patience and willingness to help me learn. It's difficult when you're shooting something on your own without anyone around who can give you feedback or advice....
 
I see the color differential, but for me it is the "pose". Pants thrown onto a table don't show the article to its best advantage. You might think about better ways to display the clothing so they don't look like a sack.

Also, the shadow is doing you no favors.
 

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