Perspective in Product Photography

Retrophonica

Retrophonica

Messages
65
Name
Andy
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi everyone

I have been shooting a load of different products for a current project and a bottle of bubble bath has me scratching my head.

If I try to explain the shot – Imagine a posh bubble bath in a posh box. Stood up, side by side

The bubble bath is tall and cylindrical and the box is tall and square.

The shot looks good and I’m happy with the result – i.e the lighting and etc however the perspective is all wrong and the two items are tilting


I have corrected this in Photoshop fairly easily but my question is how do I shoot it correctly in the first place? I’m guessing it’s distance and lenses but can someone give me a bit more to help me understand ‘why’


Thanks

Andy
 
It tilts because your camera was tilted.
To stop it tilting you had to keep the camera back parallel to the product.

In order to show the top of the box and keep the camera right, you need a tilt shift lens or a camera with movements.

Google ‘scheimpflug’
 
Last edited:
Phil V said:
It tilts because your camera was tilted.
To stop it tilting you had to keep the camera back parallel to the product.

In order to show the top of the box and keep the camera right, you need a tilt shift lens or a camera with movements.

Google ‘scheimpflug’
Click to expand...


It also helps to to take the shot from further away using a longer lens. Then software corrections will be less extreme.

I have thought about this a number of times and it would be reasonable to mount a digital camera back on a monorail camera and use a longer focal length lens.
Of course some medium format digital backs are made for this, but the cost is very high.
 
I wonder if something could be done with a macro bellows?

I’m contemplating a T/S converter when I finally buy an EOS M5, (its part of my fantasy kit)
 
Phil's answer is correct, and that nice Captain Scheimpflug had it sussed:)
Without even seeing the subject, I would say that you need a falling front to achieve a straight front and rear standard, in order to show the top of the product without tilting the camera. Your only real alternative is to shoot square, i.e. without tilting the camera, which means that you won't be able to show the top, although to some extent a shift lens can help. I've used an 80mm one on a Canon camera, and it was useful, although limited.

Up to a point, the "distort" thing in PS comes somewhere near, or at least it does if, as well as changing the perspective you also increase the height, but it isn't the same and, for pro photography for a good brand, I would say that a monorail camera (and the technical knowledge to use it) is the only real option.

I may be wrong, but I can't see how a macro bellows can get around this problem.
 
Last edited:
Some 'Macro' bellows units had a rising/tilting front standard but may not be suitable at the sort of distances involved here. We used to use digital bodies on the back of Sinar monorails via an adapted plate (using a short extension tube) mounted onto the rear standard in place of the ground glass screen, however this was for high macro photography. A problem even using a longer focal length lens may be the compression (even with bag bellows possibly) of the bellows restricting some of the movement (not 100% sure on that.)

A dedicated Tilt/Shift lens would indeed be the answer here but an expensive option.

As Garry above says correcting in PS you do need to make an adjustment to the height of the image, not at my work computer, but I believe the correction in Lightroom takes this into account so ACR may possibly have this ability.
 
PhilH04 said:
Some 'Macro' bellows units had a rising/tilting front standard but may not be suitable at the sort of distances involved here. We used to use digital bodies on the back of Sinar monorails via an adapted plate (using a short extension tube) mounted onto the rear standard in place of the ground glass screen, however this was for high macro photography. A problem even using a longer focal length lens may be the compression (even with bag bellows possibly) of the bellows restricting some of the movement (not 100% sure on that.)

A dedicated Tilt/Shift lens would indeed be the answer here but an expensive option.

As Garry above says correcting in PS you do need to make an adjustment to the height of the image, not at my work computer, but I believe the correction in Lightroom takes this into account so ACR may possibly have this ability.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that, something that I didn't know.
I remember the Horseman "35mm" monorail camera, which was attached to a digital back, someone told me a while ago that they disappeared from sight because there was no repairs service available, which was a pity because the idea of a full movement monorail camera, using digital, at a fraction of the running cost of a standard LF camera is attractive
 
As mentioned, the back of the camera must be square to the subject to correct converging/diverging verticals. But then you'll chop off the bottom of the bottle. The easy way is to correct in software, but it's not always the best way. To do it in-camera, the lens must be shifted down, with a tilt & shift lens, or there are adapters available but not without considerable practical downsides. A quick and dirty fix is to set the camera up square, and then zoom back (or fit wider angle lens) until the bottom of the subject is in view, then crop in post-processing. This effectively creates a smaller-format camera with shifting lens, but image quality will be reduced (though depth of field will be increased, which could be a handy upside).

I face this problem a lot and my solution is as Terry suggests. Shoot with a longer lens to minimise the amount of correction needed, then straighten things up in software. I might add a bit of the zooming back trick as well. If you don't need too much correction, software is fine and if you do too much correction anyway, by whatever method, it makes the subject look odd - we expect to see objects with tapered sides when looking down or up at them, as a natural perspective effect.

Edit: sometimes unnatural perspective effects enhance the image. I love this old and much-copied shot of the Flatiron Building taken in the early 1900s, with a ton of rising-front on the lens.
https://media1.britannica.com/eb-media/63/116563-004-383A1F85.jpg
 
Last edited:
HoppyUK said:
That's cool (y)

No reason why you couldn't fit a digital camera on the back of that, though it's a macro rig - and very handy for that, but not really suitable for product photography.
Click to expand...

Fit a longer focal length lens on it and it would make a fine studio camera.
 
Garry Edwards said:
That would take care of the perspective problem, but wouldn't show the top of the product
Click to expand...

Sorry wasn't very clear... I meant treat it as a vertical pan, but instead of tilting the camera, take one image including the top, then move the camera down by perhaps a couple of inches to include the base, then stitch together, all the time keeping the camera square to the subject. I have done this many times when I was unable to retreat far enough back to include the whole subject...
 
Thanks for all the replies - This forum is great - you guys really give good detail
Definitely gives me a good understanding - I will try to shoot again but with the limited equipment I have I'm going to have to tweak in Photoshop
 
You're welcome, and doing it in software is the obvious way forward for your needs.

If these discussions sometimes go off topic and get a bit technical, you need to bear in mind that "product photography" is a pretty broad church...
At one end of the scale there's the Amazon product photos, where the name of the game is to produce lots of different viewpoints of cheap products, to tempt buyers who are only interested in the cheapest, and "good" product photos for this market are just white background shots that show what it looks like from various angles - the name of the game here is to shoot, process and upload as many as possible as quickly as possible, and the people who do this kind of work are generally on minimum pay if they're in the UK, and a lot less if they're not.

And at the other end of the scale there are the aspirational images that make people want to reach out and touch the product, and make them really want it. For this market, the financial rewards are considerable and a few thousand for the right camera equipment, and 3 or 4 times as much for the right lighting, is just chicken feed:)
 
Garry Edwards said:
Looks ideal, and not a bad price either

That would take care of the perspective problem, but wouldn't show the top of the product
Click to expand...

Actually it is not even as simple as that, as you are moving the Nodal point ( entry pupil ). so it will only stitch accurately in a single plane.
It will create problems with stitching the depth of the item. in the form of Parallax.

It is far easier to stitch in the normal way by tilting the lens through the entry point. This will place both images on the surface of the same sphere, and then output as a corrected projection in the normal way.
All perspective distortions are corrected in the process.
But not in Adobe stitcher, as it does not have a means of correcting for perspective in that way.
However all stitchers based on Helmut Dersch's Pano Tools. such as PTGui and PTAssembler can.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
Actually it is not even as simple as that, as you are moving the Nodal point ( entry pupil ). so it will only stitch accurately in a single plane. It will create problems with stitching the depth of the item. in the form of Parallax.
It is far easier to stitch in the normal way by tilting the lens through the entry point. This will place both images on the surface of the same sphere, and then output as a corrected projection in the normal way. All perspective distortions are corrected in the process.
But not in Adobe stitcher, as it does not have a means of correcting for perspective in that way.
However all stitchers based on Helmut Dersch's Pano Tools. such as PTGui and PTAssembler can.
Click to expand...


:agree:
 
Garry Edwards said:
You're welcome, and doing it in software is the obvious way forward for your needs.

If these discussions sometimes go off topic and get a bit technical, you need to bear in mind that "product photography" is a pretty broad church...
At one end of the scale there's the Amazon product photos, where the name of the game is to produce lots of different viewpoints of cheap products, to tempt buyers who are only interested in the cheapest, and "good" product photos for this market are just white background shots that show what it looks like from various angles - the name of the game here is to shoot, process and upload as many as possible as quickly as possible, and the people who do this kind of work are generally on minimum pay if they're in the UK, and a lot less if they're not.

And at the other end of the scale there are the aspirational images that make people want to reach out and touch the product, and make them really want it. For this market, the financial rewards are considerable and a few thousand for the right camera equipment, and 3 or 4 times as much for the right lighting, is just chicken feed:)
Click to expand...


It's absolutely fine that the topic gets technical - I've been a tinkering photographer for years - and have never been a big fan of forums but you guys give so much detail, it's amazing - I can take in what I want and continue to learn once I've understood the bit I wanted - I find myself on YouTube straight after and the theory from here and then watching it via video is an excellent learning aid. For this I am very grateful.

It’s no secret that I’m very much a beginner in Product Photography but not such a newbie around a camera but it’s not the Amazon look or feel that I want – I’m pretty good at Photoshop and cutting something out and putting it on a background is within my experience but I’d rather have the real shot – like you say, the look and feel of the product
 
Garry Edwards said:
You're welcome, and doing it in software is the obvious way forward for your needs.

If these discussions sometimes go off topic and get a bit technical, you need to bear in mind that "product photography" is a pretty broad church...
At one end of the scale there's the Amazon product photos, where the name of the game is to produce lots of different viewpoints of cheap products, to tempt buyers who are only interested in the cheapest, and "good" product photos for this market are just white background shots that show what it looks like from various angles - the name of the game here is to shoot, process and upload as many as possible as quickly as possible, and the people who do this kind of work are generally on minimum pay if they're in the UK, and a lot less if they're not.

And at the other end of the scale there are the aspirational images that make people want to reach out and touch the product, and make them really want it. For this market, the financial rewards are considerable and a few thousand for the right camera equipment, and 3 or 4 times as much for the right lighting, is just chicken feed:)
Click to expand...

True, and when you have a client paying well into four figures per day, it helps if your camera doesn't look too similar to the entry-level DSLR they have at home ;)

The other problem with small format cameras, ie full-frame DSLRs, for high-end product photography is that tilt & shift movements are optically limited (and physically quite tricky too). The short focal length lenses used have very shallow depth-of-focus (as opposed to depth-of-field which is generous) that is measured in mms, or even fractions of a mm with a wide-angle lenses at low f/numbers. Large formats like 5x4in and bigger are more forgiving with a much more usable balance between depth-of-field and depth-of-focus.
 
sk66 said:
Jeeze, would you guys just stop? I considered adapting a monorail w/ a bag bellows at one time... and now I'm thinking about it again!

Sinar also made the P-SLR for a while. Or there's this adaptation, you just need a Sinar P to go with it.
Click to expand...

Haha :D Always lusted after a Sinar. Cambo is nice, but Sinar... :)

I've not used anything like your link, and I'd love to give it a go, but you can see some of the difficulties in the linked images. Even with bag-bellows, getting the lens close enough to the camera severely restricts focal length options and/or movements, and in the way it's shown, the camera lens mount/throat is clearly blocking the light path to the sensor. A Sony A-series mirrorless would be better? Also, large format lenses with big image circles are not as sharp as those optimised for smaller formats.

Unfortunately, I think the bottom line with camera/lens movements and DSLRs is that a T&S lens is as good as it gets. I keep looking at that new Canon TS-E 135/4L Macro.
 
HoppyUK said:
The other problem with small format cameras, ie full-frame DSLRs, for high-end product photography is that tilt & shift movements are optically limited (and physically quite tricky too). The short focal length lenses used have very shallow depth-of-focus (as opposed to depth-of-field which is generous) that is measured in mms, or even fractions of a mm with a wide-angle lenses at low f/numbers. Large formats like 5x4in and bigger are more forgiving with a much more usable balance between depth-of-field and depth-of-focus.
Click to expand...
Up to a point, yes. Of course, Depth of field is sort of greater because of the relatively short focal lengths involved, although I think what you may be referring to is the plane of sharp focus, which gives great apparent depth of field, and depth of focus is severely limited for the same reason.
But surely the real problem with tilt/shift is simply that it only applies to the front standard?
I found tilt shift useful (after you helpfully suggested it to me) at Lencarta, using a 80mm medium format lens on a Canon DSLR, but it was never more than a poor compromise for a real monorail camera...
sk66 said:
Jeeze, would you guys just stop? I considered adapting a monorail w/ a bag bellows at one time... and now I'm thinking about it again!

Sinar also made the P-SLR for a while. Or there's this adaptation, you just need a Sinar P to go with it.
Click to expand...
I was amazed, first time I went to China, at the range of monorail cameras and equipment available there, and with their innovation too. Go to any large city, Shanghai for example, and you'll find shopping malls that sell everything photographic, and nothing but photographic - in Shanghai there are 3 of these, and each has a floor dedicated soley to LF:)
HoppyUK said:
Haha :D Always lusted after a Sinar. Cambo is nice, but Sinar... :)

I've not used anything like your link, and I'd love to give it a go, but you can see some of the difficulties in the linked images. Even with bag-bellows, getting the lens close enough to the camera severely restricts focal length options and/or movements, and in the way it's shown, the camera lens mount/throat is clearly blocking the light path to the sensor. A Sony A-series mirrorless would be better? Also, large format lenses with big image circles are not as sharp as those optimised for smaller formats.

Unfortunately, I think the bottom line with camera/lens movements and DSLRs is that a T&S lens is as good as it gets. I keep looking at that new Canon TS-E 135/4L Macro.
Click to expand...
I used to use a Sinar P2, great camera because of its yaw-free adjustments, but at the end of the day they all do the same job
 
Garry Edwards said:
Up to a point, yes. Of course, Depth of field is sort of greater because of the relatively short focal lengths involved, although I think what you may be referring to is the plane of sharp focus, which gives great apparent depth of field, and depth of focus is severely limited for the same reason.
But surely the real problem with tilt/shift is simply that it only applies to the front standard?

<snip>
Click to expand...

Having both front (lens) and rear (sensor/film) movements is really just a convenience factor (a big convenience), while effectively doubling the range of movement available in each plane. I had a Linhof Technica with only front movements, so the way to get the rear to move was to reposition the whole camera on the tripod, then adjust the front to it.

It was a right PITA though, with a lot of adjustment and readjustment and final tweaking before it was right. A good ten minutes of fiddling, and a severe discouragement to moving the camera around too much ;) With a monorail, especially a really good one with axial pivots etc, you just twiddle a couple of knobs until it looks right and you're done.
 
HoppyUK said:
but Sinar... :)
Click to expand...
The P-SLR looks veeerrry nice... but I've never even seen one for sale.

HoppyUK said:
I keep looking at that new Canon TS-E 135/4L Macro.
Click to expand...
I have a 24mm PC-E I use with extension tubes and TC's to get me most of what I need... I also modified it so that tilt and shift are on the same axis. Really, I think the small format is the main issue... it takes me forever to refine the focus using tilt.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I was amazed, first time I went to China, at the range of monorail cameras and equipment available there, and with their innovation too. Go to any large city, Shanghai for example, and you'll find shopping malls that sell everything photographic, and nothing but photographic - in Shanghai there are 3 of these, and each has a floor dedicated soley to LF:)
Click to expand...
I went into one in Guangzhou... it was overwhelming...
 
sk66 said:
The P-SLR looks veeerrry nice... but I've never even seen one for sale.


I have a 24mm PC-E I use with extension tubes and TC's to get me most of what I need... I also modified it so that tilt and shift are on the same axis. Really, I think the small format is the main issue... it takes me forever to refine the focus using tilt.
Click to expand...

Absolutely ... movements on 35mm are extremely critical and difficult to determine.
In large format the depth of focus is so long, quite large positional errors can be accommodated...
and they need to be, as most monorails have measurable errors in the in all their "Zero" positions, and are so are out of parrallel in any direction.
 
Hire a Tilt Shift the Nikon version is £59 for 3 days from lenses for hire.
You would need to play with the tilt function just to get the hang of it but if you have live view and patience its not too difficult
 
Last edited:
Terrywoodenpic said:
Absolutely ... movements on 35mm are extremely critical and difficult to determine.
In large format the depth of focus is so long, quite large positional errors can be accommodated...
and they need to be, as most monorails have measurable errors in the in all their "Zero" positions, and are so are out of parrallel in any direction.
Click to expand...
I think you've hit the proverbial nail:)
With LF, experience and understanding of Scheimpflug we just throw everything around, it's quick and easy and, providing that we stop the (5x4) lens down to around f/45, no problem.
But with a tilt shift lens on a DSLR, it's a dead slow, frustrating and uncertain process. I accept that it's perfectly possible theoretically to tilt the camera to emulate the effects of rear standard movements, but it's a nightmare to actually do it, and far easier/better just to use the tool that works
 
Garry Edwards said:
...but it's a nightmare to actually do it, and far easier/better just to use the tool that works
Click to expand...
Focus stacking... seriously.
If I were smart I would sell my PC-E and get an old 28 or 35mm PC lens (or both for a lot less $$) and use focus stacking when DOF matters. With DSLRs tilt is mostly a special effect IMO, just wish I knew that earlier.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top