Beginner Seeking advice Re: Product Photography

[V.Lewis]

Hi, I'm not a professional photographer, I sell my products online so have had to learn how to photograph them for my online listings (I sell wedding accessories, mostly guest books and albums, so small -medium size products).

I have a Nikon D3100. My usual set up is a flat lay near to a window with my camera on a tripod. I use a 40mm 1:2.8 lens and I shoot in Aperture Priority mode, usually with an aperture of around 5.6 (altering the exposure to try and get the best result). ISO 200. White Balance- cloudy, Quality -fine. I use a diffuser panel to even out the light and a light coloured board to bounce it back in from the other side.

My photos are o.k. and my products sell, but I know the images could be better...they often look a bit grey and lack clarity. I currently edit in Pixlr so tweak the brightness, contrast, colour temp etc there. Just wondered if anyone has any advice on how I can improve my technique please and get clearer, punchier pictures? (Examples of some of my product images below)

I have just purchased 2 NanGuang LED Lux Pads as I thought they might help boost the light and help me maintain some lighting consistency in my images. Does anyone know if it's o.k. to use these light pads in conjunction with natural light (and if so how best to do that) or should they be used as the only source of light i.e. in a room where natural light is closed off?

Any advice gratefully received, thank you!

 

[Garry Edwards]

I had to look up "NanGuang LED Lux Pads" - expensive for what they are - can you send them back? According to the stated specs, they have about the same colour temperature as daylight, so it should be OK to use them with daylight, but there are caveats to that . . .
1. Daylight colour temperature varies wildly at different times of day.
2. Compared to daylight, they will have very little power (unless used very close to the subject or if the daylight comes from a very dull day) so that may not work as well as you might expect.

But that isn't the real problem. The problem is that they don't allow anywhere near enough control of your lighting. The marketing guff states that they give a beautiful soft light but that isn't true, softness is directly related to size and distance, so with something this small you won't get soft light on such a big subject, you need a fairly large (about 80x80cm) softbox on a flash for that. And you won't get hard, directional light either, which you need to reveal any texture or embossing on your products. What you need for that is a honeycomb (or grid in Americanese ) fitted to a standard reflector, again fitted to a flash head.

Flash is the way to go, not only because it has far more power and so the results won't be affected either by the present of daylight or by any other form of lighting, but also because it produces accurate colours and the ability to control the lighting fully. I'm not talking about flashguns here, I'm talking about studio flash, such as this one from Lencarta (other brands are available). They also do kits, with the radio triggers also available for other makes. And although a lot of people think that flash is complicated, it's actually easier than continuous lighting because of the ability to overpower unwanted ambient light.

It's basically the flat lighting that's causing the boring, dull images. Also, if you have a lens longer than the 40mm one that you're using at present, this would allow you to take shots that aren't directly overhead, without creating bad perspective distortion.

Also, you're shooting at f/5.6 - your size of camera should be OK as small as f/11, which would create more depth of field.

 

[V.Lewis]

Thank you very much for your advice Garry, much appreciated. I've never considered any type of flash as I thought it was a bit of a no-no in product photography but I will do a bit of research into studio flash. Thank you.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Thank you very much for your advice Garry, much appreciated. I've never considered any type of flash as I thought it was a bit of a no-no in product photography but I will do a bit of research into studio flash. Thank you.

Unfortunately, this kind of misinformation is very common on the web. In fact flash (studio flash, not a flashgun fixed on to a camera) is the perfect answer. Here's a very old thread where again the person who asked for advice had been given poor information before he came here https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/fluorescent-or-halogen-help-needed.365254/

You'll find a lot of potentially useful info on the Lencarta learning centre, here https://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-blog/
This one explains the principles https://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-blog/getting-started-with-studio-flash/#.WBM-S9UrKUk