Product shots, Best set up?

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Parklife

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Name
Darron
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Have been struggling with this for a while.

The gear I have is:

Canon 50D
Lens - 17-85 IS USM
Lens - Nifty Fifty
Lens - 18-135 IS
Elinchrom D Lites
One black and One white umbrella
Elinchrom Rotalux 100x100 softbox
Lencarta Quick Setup Still Life Table

am trying to produce product images of generally smallish products with a crisp white background with minimal amount of post processing. Where should the lights be situated? do I need another light? Do you light from each side? Do you also light from underneath? What am I doing so wrong?? Any idea's???

Below are 2 examples where the sides are washed/blown out.

EI_1880_50004_zoom.jpg


EI_2112_38383_zoom.jpg
 
Sorry, but there are no really simple answers to this.
Firstly, it's one of those 'it depends' questions. It depends largely on the subject. If it's a shiny subject like this one
fillcard1.jpg

then it just needs one very large softbox immediately overhead (although I added a honeycombed, gelled light on the background too) as explained in this post on the Lencarta lighting blog.
Simple.

And an overhead, angled softbox is as close to a 'standard' lighting setup as you can get, it doesn't always produce the right kind of light but it's normally a good starting point at least.

But what about when a soft overhead light source isn't enough? This shot
final.jpg
in this lighting blog was far more complex, it still needed the overhead softbox but also needed honeycombed lights to pick up the detail, and another one to produce a backlit effect.

If the subjects have a textured surface then you'll generally need a honeycombed light for that too, I often use a honeycombed beauty dish - but not always, it depends largely on the size.

Coming back to your specific questions, frankly you're being a bit ambitious, trying to get a pure white background with a minimum of lighting. I'm sure you've seen all the posts on lighting white backgrounds, and have seen the awful results that come from having too much light on the background and having the subject too close to the background? This is exactly the same problem, unwanted light is running up the sides of the subject where it isn't wanted.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm always banging on about getting everything as right as it can be in camera, and so minimising unnecessary PP work, but unless you can separate the subject from the background (using a glass shelf to raise the subject from the table and unless you can use more lighting, you need to cut out the subject from the background PP - or better still, pay someone else to do it...
 
Parklife said:
Have been struggling with this for a while.
<snip>
Click to expand...

They'll look ten times better if you just turn down the under-lighting, and cover all the white areas outside the image with black card/paper to kill the flare.

Turn down the under-light until the background just goes grey, then increase the brightness slightly so that the blinkies* start flashing. Then you know that it's pure white, but no more. It's the excess of light that's blowing everything out.

*highlight alert, over exposure warning, enabled in the menu.
 
Would it help suspending the object from the white background. I've used a small block of wood, that's arranged so you cant see it from the shooting angle (or taken out in post). It'll helps reduce flare from the background.

Quite like the idea of lighting the background from behind. Is that Lencata table translucent (never really looked at them)?
 
Both Richard and Byker281 have made very valid points - as I said earlier, the pollution from the lit background is really much the same thing as from people 'Chavground' shots, with the same solution.

The shortcoming of Byker's suggested block of wood is that sometimes it can't be done, and even when it can, it makes it impossible to create a semi-reflection if required, hence my suggestion of a sheet of glass instead. The Lencarta Quick Setup Still Life Table is translucent and can be lit from behind. The problem, as with all the small ones, is that it needs to be on stilts to allow enough room to put light underneath it, but it's an easy fix.
 
This is an example of what I meant by cutting the subject out of the background PP, the drop shadow is very easy to add
mod004_angledown.jpg

It's also an example of very different lighting, the product itself is simple enough but the shapes are fairly complex and the lighting needed to be arranged to produce the diffused specular highlights needed and to define the shape and to make it look prettier than it actually is show how pretty it really is:) - a technique that needs to be used with functional products that are designed for their function rather than their form.
Here, I used the overhead softbox already mentioned. This created the specular highlights on the top and on each of the various steps, and the facing-forward position also added a bit of a 'glow' to the outline.
Then a softbox each side of the camera, these created symetrical diffused specular highlights. The product isn't straight so the softboxes were tilted to the same angle, so that their light was roughly equal from top to bottom. With 'technical' shots I would have tilted them more, to get them exactly right but it wasn't needed for this shot.
 
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Garry, your two front softboxes are different colours! :thinking:
 
Garry Edwards said:
Both Richard and Byker281 have made very valid points - as I said earlier, the pollution from the lit background is really much the same thing as from people 'Chavground' shots, with the same solution.

The shortcoming of Byker's suggested block of wood is that sometimes it can't be done, and even when it can, it makes it impossible to create a semi-reflection if required, hence my suggestion of a sheet of glass instead. The Lencarta Quick Setup Still Life Table is translucent and can be lit from behind. The problem, as with all the small ones, is that it needs to be on stilts to allow enough room to put light underneath it, but it's an easy fix.
Click to expand...

Wow i got something right.

For some product shoots I've used a small fish tank as a glass box to stand the product on, but I was shooting large rack mounted kit., as we needed to be able to cut out the product, or have it against a white background. The glass sheet is good, I've also used a sheet of white Perspex where I've used just a hint of reflection.

I suppose it's obvious but I've not thought about lighting from behind the background, generally as I was using thick white backdrop paper, but that's another idea to try in the future. Always something to learn on here :)

Gary, great description of lighting the cone.
 
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