Light tent - product photography first attempt

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bpretorius

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Bernard
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I had my first attempt at product photography in a 80cm light tent. Apart from the phone being a bit dirty I have the following questions:

1. the bottom of the phone seems lighter than the top
2. the screen as gone all stripy - how do you take a nice crisp shot of the screen without the stripes?
3. It doesn't matter how i position the lights, I can't seem to get rid of the shadows?

Is there any other tips as to how to improve this shot? I have attached a picture with my light setup too.


Light tent-1 by nstofberg, on Flickr



photo by nstofberg, on Flickr
 
bpretorius said:
I had my first attempt at product photography in a 80cm light tent. Apart from the phone being a bit dirty I have the following questions:

1. the bottom of the phone seems lighter than the top
2. the screen as gone all stripy - how do you take a nice crisp shot of the screen without the stripes?
3. It doesn't matter how i position the lights, I can't seem to get rid of the shadows?

<snip>

Is there any other tips as to how to improve this shot? I have attached a picture with my light setup too.
Click to expand...

1) Bottom of screen is picking up a reflection of the white foreground.

2) It's moire - dots on the screen are clashing with pixels on the sensor. Try getting the phone bigger in the image, turn it on its side.

3) Not much you can do about the lighting in a tent. It's pretty much light everywhere, whether you like it or not. Fine for plain product shots on e-bay, not for anything creative. If you want to get rid of the shadows, suspend the phone in mid air, hiding the support behind. Or get rid of it in post processing.
 
Thanks Richard - appreciate the reply.

On point 2 - would it help to use a longer shutter speed? current settings are f11 640ISO 1/15sec.
Also - in soe places I have read it is better to use apertures wider than f3.5 and others say to use f8 or f11 for sharpness. What is your thoughts on that?
 
bpretorius said:
Thanks Richard - appreciate the reply.

On point 2 - would it help to use a longer shutter speed? current settings are f11 640ISO 1/15sec.
Also - in soe places I have read it is better to use apertures wider than f3.5 and others say to use f8 or f11 for sharpness. What is your thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

Shutter speed won't change anything.

Lenses have a sweet spot, and on a crop format DSLR that will be around f/5.6-8 in the centre. After that, diffraction starts to eat away at finer details and all lenses suffer in the same way. The edges might get a tad sharper at f/11, but if you want ultimate sharpness, the centre will have lost a smidge by then. But we're talking of a very high standard and it won't be noticeable in anything less than say A4, and then you'd have to look close. For small size outputs, or screen viewing, you'll not see it without pixel peeping.

With close up subjects like that, you may be surprised at how shallow depth of field becomes. Check it here* http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html I was shooting some small stuff recently and had to use f/32! Fortunately it was only going to be output very small so ultimate sharpness wasn't vital, but that's one of the reason why product photographers use tilt & shift lenses that can help to increase effective DoF at lower f/numbers, amongst other things.

Thinking about the moire, you might be able to reduce it by setting the phone exactly square to the camera, so the lines of dots and pixels align. Might help. Or you could try shooting at a deliberately high f/number, like f/22 where diffraction blurring works like a strong anti-aliasing filter. The image won't be quite as sharp overall, but the moire pattern will be reduced or eliminated.

* Edit: Depth of field distances are measured from the front of the lens, whereas the scale on the lens will refer to distance from the sensor. Can make a difference at close range, but the best way is to check it by zooming in on the LCD and scolling round the image. When you're close like that, DoF is roughly equal either side of the focused point.
 
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HoppyUK said:
With close up subjects like that, you may be surprised at how shallow depth of field becomes. Check it here* http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html I was shooting some small stuff recently and had to use f/32! Fortunately it was only going to be output very small so ultimate sharpness wasn't vital, but that's one of the reason why product photographers use tilt & shift lenses that can help to increase effective DoF at lower f/numbers, amongst other things.
Click to expand...
I encountered exactly this problem recently when trying to photograph a display of albums on a table top. I couldn't at first understand why I simply couldn't get it all in focus. I was even questioning whether there was a problem with autofocus on the lens. It eventually dawned on me that the DoF was only a couple of feet & that the fore & aft distance on the table was over two feet. I'm normally shooting people so don't have to worry about a DoF of just two feet. I'm either working stopped down with a far greater DoF or I know that the aperture is wide open & DoF is really shallow e.g. on a head shot but that's what I'm aiming for.
 
Chuck away the tent, use a simple white scoop a d build you lighting up.
 
Cant you buy lighting tents quite cheaply these days? As much as I like making stuff it often ends up costing more, taking loads of time and not being as good as an ebay cheapy.
 
Probably a couple of things you could adjust. I find the need for light from above as well as the sides if I want to eliminate all shadows. It's also helpful to have some backlight where possible but if the light from above is sufficient then you can do without it.

If it's impossible to get continuous light from above then use a flash off-camera and fired into the roof of the tent.

Finally, I find it far easier to shoot on a solid white surface like card than on material, which inevitably gives an uneven surface and attracts shadows beneath the subject in the small even gaps.

This is my setup for these kind of shots:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/?attachment_id=1164

And a couple of examples of shots taken recently with that setup:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/?attachment_id=1133

This one even includes an iPhone 4: :D

http://thirtyfivemill.com/?attachment_id=1073

If you struggle with artificial lighting and can shoot during daylight hours with reasonable light you can get good results by placing the tent with the back to a decent size window.

Whilst a ted flat, this image was taken with just window light:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/?attachment_id=1119

as was this one:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/?attachment_id=1099

and this one:

http://thirtyfivemill.com/?attachment_id=1126
 
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Shooting with the bare reflectors will limit your options as you're just flooding the entire area with light. The tent will diffuse this to an extent but grids for the reflectors will help you direct the light much better. As Richard said I'd get the phone off the ground so you combat the kick back off the base and the shadows. Shooting phones head on isn't the easiest as you'll be reflected back in the screen, I'd either shoot it above or below the centre of the lens (means you're out of the sweet spot though) or shoot the phone at an angle and then post process it straight (if you want it straight - truth be told to do it well you need a tilt and shift lens). Experiment with the angle of the phone, you'll get some nice reflections with the phone at an angle.
 
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