Question about lighting: product photography

[Compaq]

I took some shots with my Canon 50/1.8 mounted on my brother's 450D, of my 40D and Tokina 11-16mm/2.8. I selling this stuff, and I wanted above-average shots of what I'm selling. I just hate when I look at stuff I want, but the pics are non-descriptive and poor. I hope to produce something better, without twisting the true, cosmetic nature of what I sell.

As some may know, I've made myself a light tent. I believe it works well, though I must do some colour corrections due to poor light sources (and who knows, maybe the sheet I used isn't completely white).

Anyway, I have done basic adjustments such as contrast, fill light, crop, clarity, sharpness, some adjustment brush stuff where I felt it was necessary.

By using continuous lighting, my ss is fairly long. Obviously I used my tripod for this. Manual focus.

I regret having the initially white background becoming slightly grey. Ideally, I'd like the background to be completely white. Also, since I overexposed these by a stop or two, the camera wasn't completely black. So I've had to correct for that in ACR. Is the lighting in these okay? I feel it's soft, and illuminates the subject nicely all over, though some areas might be a little dark. I'd like a small supplementary light in front of my camera (lol, maybe my pop-up flash might have worked...never thought of that) to fill in some dark areas. The shots here aren't the best to show that, though.

I'm not sure if this section of the forum is appropriate for asking for criticism, but I felt I might get more "qualified" answers from the folks that dwell deep within the lighting section . I ask for forgiveness, if I have posted in the completely wrong place.

Another thing I had some troubles with, was depth of field. I realise now that maybe I should have stopped down significantly from f/5 in the lens shot. I've focused on the middle of the lens. Not hyperfocal, but certainly better than focusing on the front element I almost got the entire lens in focus. f/14 seems sufficient for the whole body+lens shot, except for some small areas on the lens hood.

f/14
4 seconds
ISO-200


Til sals_9 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


original


IMG_3247 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr



f/5
1/4th of a second
ISO-200



Til sals_3 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr



original


IMG_3238 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


I thank you for opinions and advice regarding lighting and getting a proper depth of field!

 

[KmH]

You need some light from the front. Note how the grip area on the camera is dark and the front of the lens is also dark.

A piece of dowel rod is easier to clone out than a body cap or rear lens cap.

Watch the reflections in the front lens element. You can use a flag to control those.

Do you have the lighting fundamentals reference bible - Light Science and Magic, Fourth Edition: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

 

[480sparky]

Shoot raw, so there's no issue making an off-gray background pure white.

 

[Compaq]

Kmh, no I do not have that book. All i know of lighting is what I've read here and common knowledge.

I did shoot raw, but didn't notice the greyness until I had a white background, such as on this site.