Beginner Beginner Product Photography Questions

[bluesky422]

Hi,

I am interested in doing some product photography for my small business of handmade bags. I have been taking shots with a homemade lightbox but the results aren’t very good. I would like to know what materials/equipment I need for this (lamps, good backdrops, umbrellas) camera settings would be great too. The main thing is I want to get good looking, professional shots. If anyone could weigh in on this that would be great.

I would really appreciate any advice from experienced photographers or if someone could point to resources that have worked for other people.

Thanks!

 

[Phil V]

But the book 'light science and magic', a product table and a starter studio light set (about half of your budget).

You'll hate me for this, but if you think photography is about dialling in some settings, you've a lot to learn before you make a good job of this.

Or to put it another way:

Hi, I've got a sewing machine and some funky material, I wonder if you could tell me how to set it up to produce some really pro looking handbags?

 

[bluesky422]

Oh I totally know that photography is an artform and I can't expect to learn it all through a online forum.

I was thinking more along the lines of suggestions for good lamps or umbrellas. Equipment and setups that may have worked for other people. Thanks

 

[droj]

Your items sound fairly compact so the lamp(s) can be relatively close and thus don't have to be hugely powerful. Start simple - with daylight (it comes, though, in many flavours - eg directionality, contrast, colour temp)? Improvise reflectors (a big sheet of white cartridge paper could be a start). Or you could use desklamps or stuff you have around as artificial light. With incandescent lamps or daylight you can obviously see and pre-judge the lighting effect to some extent, then a test shot'll show how the camera renders it. Tripod highly recommended! Aperture priority or manual ... (see below).

You can use hotshoe flashes off-camera with reflective or diffusing brollies. Get the exposure by doing test shots to save having a flash meter. You probably want a certain power though to let you use f11 (say) to get most parts of the bags in focus.

Plain background avoids distraction but can be allowed to have overall texture like wood or fabric - natural materials contribute a heartening ambience, synthetic materials a more clinical one.

What are the bags made of?

 

[Phil V]

Oh I totally know that photography is an artform and I can't expect to learn it all through a online forum.

I was thinking more along the lines of suggestions for good lamps or umbrellas. Equipment and setups that may have worked for other people. Thanks

You did say...

...I would like to know what materials/equipment I need for this (lamps, good backdrops, umbrellas) camera settings would be great too...

And you should know enough to know that that can't really happen.

The reality is that light is light, whether it's from desk lamps, the sun, flashguns or studio lights. If you want predictable results consistently and the best choice of light modifiers, the best tool is studio flash. That's why I recommended a starter studio kit and a book. And I recommended you spent no more than 50% of your budget on it so that you can buy other more suitable modifiers, when you'd learned what you really need.

We could write you a long list of stuff to buy, but it'd likely be useless, because what you'll need is dependant on your requirements when you understand what they are.

 

[Alastair]

The main thing is I want to get good looking, professional shots.

Pay a professional.

But serioualy, Phil has recomended the best resource on this subject - Light, Science and Magic. Read this before buying any lighting equipment, otherwise you're going to buy useless crap regardless of any recommendations you get on this thread. There are no magic settings or set-up for product photography. You're always having to think about how individual components of the product will react to light, how they'll reflect light, absorb light.

A quick example, you've a matte black bag with a shiny clasp - the fabric of the bag will react to light in one way and the clasp will react in almost completely the opposite fashion, and then you need to think about the background. The good news is that by reading Light, Science and Magic it will take you through how to deal with this type of situation.

In case repitition isn't emphasis enough..

Light, Science and Magic - beg, steal or borrow it.. but read it.

 

[Phil V]

It's not even a nice read! But it's full of really useful information, and it's something you can go back to if you're stumped.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Just bear in mind that Light: Science Magic is a book that explains various lighting challenges and their solutions, basically it's a physics book written for non physicists, which makes it readable.
What it won't do is to tell you which lights, where and how many to achieve a particular effect - any book that does that is going to be a waste of time and money - so you will have to interpret the info and apply it to your own needs.

Product photography is really all about lighting shape, texture and reflectivity, and handbags have all of those in spades, so expect to have to climb up a sharp learning curve

As it happens, we've just supplied a kit to a novice photographer to do exactly the same thing, in his case he will be photographing very expensive fashion bags that cost thousands each. Describing him as a novice photographer isn't really fair though, he is far from a novice and is very good at his own speciality, it's just that he has never used lighting before. But if I wasn't confident that he will be able to turn out the quality needed for these very expensive bags, I would have told him to turn the job down.

 

[driver_wedge]

Oh I totally know that photography is an artform and I can't expect to learn it all through a online forum.

I was thinking more along the lines of suggestions for good lamps or umbrellas. Equipment and setups that may have worked for other people. Thanks

Why not post up a few links to the sort of photos you're trying to achieve.

 

[JennyGW]

But the book 'light science and magic', a product table and a starter studio light set (about half of your budget).

You'll hate me for this, but if you think photography is about dialling in some settings, you've a lot to learn before you make a good job of this.

Or to put it another way:

Hi, I've got a sewing machine and some funky material, I wonder if you could tell me how to set it up to produce some really pro looking handbags?

I maybe a cynic, but I think what the poster is trying to achieve is pro level shots without having to pay a professional product photograher without realising how much she has to learn - and buy.

 

[mercmanuk]

I have to agree with others OP, if your selling a product then you need good clear photographs to sell the item, but lets face it Ebay is full if shots taken of items which sell day in day out by people not remotely interested in achieving a good picture, Pay a professional and express to them the kind of shots you want to help sell your product.