Product photos with EOS 40D

[romanoaj31]

This is my first week using a digital camera of any quality in my life. I am trying to take product photos of computer equipment. I've set up a light tent already and started shooting a bit. My question is how can I get the crispest pics with the EOS 40D that capture details at front and back of a product. For example, in the pic below, the buttons at the fore are quite sharp, but the tape counter at the back is out of focus. Any settings help is most appreciated.

--Adam

 

[ItsDaveTime]

What aperature/iso/shutter are you shooting at? You may need to dial down your aperture a bit.

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

What you are asking about is directly related to the Depth Of Field (DOF). It is the range of distance (from the camera) that will appear sharp in the photo.
The main things that will determine your DOF are; the lens aperture, the lens focal length and the distance to the focus point (where you focus). In this case, you want a deeper DOF, so you could use a shorter focal length (wider view), but that would require you to move the camera closer (which would decrease your DOF), they pretty much cancel each other out. So that leaves us with the lens aperture. The smaller the aperture (higher F number), the deeper your DOF will be.
So in your situation, you would choose a smaller aperture (higher F number) and that would increase your DOF.

Of course, as you make the aperture smaller, you will need to compensate the exposure with either a longer shutter speed or higher ISO. That's why it's best done with a tripod, so that you can use a slower shutter speed without having to worry about blurry photos.

 

[romanoaj31]

What aperature/iso/shutter are you shooting at? You may need to dial down your aperture a bit.

My ISO was set for 100 and the aperture was at 6.7. But the photo above was taken with the macro setting because my tripod is rubbish and I couldn't hold the camera study enough for Av mode. Apparently Av mode chooses the shutter speed for you.

 

[romanoaj31]

Welcome to the forum.

So in your situation, you would choose a smaller aperture (higher F number) and that would increase your DOF.

Thanks. Experimenting with this now.

 

[3bayjunkie]

Try f11 or f16

 

[mickmac]

Bear in mind that the smaller the aperture, the more noise you are going to introduce into your image. You will also need to slow down your shutter speed which is going to add noise as well. If you don't have a good tripod, there is a lot more chance of blurring due to camera movement.
One technique is to merge a couple of different images taken with different focus points. This is what I tend to do when shooting products for packaging that need to have the entire product in focus (which is pretty much all of them). You can still keep your aperture around f8 - f11

 

[Buckster]

Bear in mind that the smaller the aperture, the more noise you are going to introduce into your image. You will also need to slow down your shutter speed which is going to add noise as well.

Neither of those should introduce noise. Increasing ISO will though.

If you don't have a good tripod, there is a lot more chance of blurring due to camera movement.

Absolutely true. Get a good solid tripod for this.

One technique is to merge a couple of different images taken with different focus points. This is what I tend to do when shooting products for packaging that need to have the entire product in focus (which is pretty much all of them). You can still keep your aperture around f8 - f11

Focus stacking is one way to do it. Another is to go hyperfocal and do it in one shot.

This will help you understand the situation better, and to help you find ways to deal with it: Online Depth of Field Calculator