Comments on: Product photography [Update]

By: Carl at work

Carl at work — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:50:08 +0000

It’s getting easier with time. Those online (the new picture above) are taken with the tent, now I’m shooting freestyle! :D no tent. I’m still using a tripod thou. I don’t have much time rigth now for other things, but I do have a wedding session coming up soon. :)

Back to work..

By: BobNL

BobNL — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:24:17 +0000

Looks to me you got it figured out :) It is a small pic but it looks convincing!

By: Carl Rytterfalk

Carl Rytterfalk — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 11:22:28 +0000

hehe… jag kan väl just nu bara säga en sak och det är att jag är mycket imponerad av folk som är duktiga på detta. Det är inte enkelt. :) Får se när jag vågar visa något om jag får.

By: Tesa

Tesa — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 07:01:14 +0000

Hur går det? Har allt löst sig?
Jag är nyfiken på att se några färdiga bilder! :)

By: carl

carl — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:37:35 +0000

Hi Mihai!

Thanks for your comment, I think you missunderstood my needs. :) I don’t need to take a 180 degree photo of an object - just one single very nice looking picture of 500 objects.

And the trickiest part so far (after dealing with 150 or so obects) is that light is nice on ONE object and on the next one it’s off again. grrrrrrr. :D So I’m more into speed shooting now. :)

By: Mihai119

Mihai119 — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:33:05 +0000

I’m not an expert (not even a good photograph) but I remember some techniques for that.
I don’t remember where I read this.
Brief
- a light in agreed with your DSLR & prisms
- the object put on a wheel (round-table - with a motor to have some constant rotation)
- the DSLR commanded at distance eventually by PC (remote connection to computer) to shoot at each step made by wheel - 1-3 frames
- the frames can be delivered as a small presentation movie and / or can be superposed to have one photo of the object without shadows

I really don’t remember where I read this technique – perhaps in dpreview sigma forum sd9-sd10 ?

I also think they exists some small round-table motorized with a syncro by PC

By: Carl Rytterfalk

Carl Rytterfalk — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:47:49 +0000

I did a google search on “Igor Panorowski” and came up with one hit. To my page. hehe.. :D

By: Clive

Clive — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 07:20:04 +0000

…good to see that Igor around these parts….

;)

Clive

By: Carl Rytterfalk

Carl Rytterfalk — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:51:11 +0000

hehe, Rickard! You surprises me with all this knowledge! I thought you were sitting with court stuff all days long. Didn’t know you had time for fun stuff! :D We can chat over skype - you have that don’t you?!

By: Rickard Faivre

Rickard Faivre — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:46:14 +0000

Hi there “little pixel”.
Continuous lighting is very important in good product shots. If you are going to use only flashes then you need three or four flashes that are synced. I played with Nikon TTL and pocket wizard some and its not easy to get even light and eliminate shadows. Contact me via email or call me. Email me for my number.
Cheers M8

By: Carl Rytterfalk

Carl Rytterfalk — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:18:08 +0000

Rickard! My good old friend! :D

Thanks for the advice. My problem is that I don’t have any continues light that is of any good quality. They’re all very very yellow and hard to deal with. I’ll see what I can do with the flashes I do have. Wanna come down and play tonight?! :D

By: Rickard Faivre

Rickard Faivre — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:54:08 +0000

Manual focus, use a tripod, set to aperature mode, use high aperature, play with EV, use continous soft lighting. Use three lights one on each side and on above and slightly behind the subject. Keep the side lights low. worked for me. shot over a thousand products. Didnt use a tent though and no glass table. Umbrellas, white sloping background and a canon 35mm digital hooked to the puter firing remote. GL

By: Carl Rytterfalk

Carl Rytterfalk — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 13:07:42 +0000

Hi Igor. That’s a very good idea. The foil would probably give more life to reliefs and the back light would give that window feeling thingi. I will definitely try it.

And about the white and the dark. Yes. I think I need to do like that too. Right now I need to change light power each time I get a black / white product. and my memory is so short so I almost need to “test” once more. hehe

thanks

By: Igor Panorowski

Igor Panorowski — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:54:33 +0000

Think you need 2 different setups one for the dark Objects (all white) and one for the white objects (all dark)
To get more uniform light I would place a flash below the tent when the ground of the tent is out of milky plastic.
On the left side where the Nikon flash is behind a sheet of paper I would use some reflective material like aluminum foil and dirct the light behind the objects on the white wall of the tent to get a uniform white BG. Placing the foil at the same position where the objecs are and reflective it back
Dunno if it works, just an idea, as you need sort of uniform background for easy postprocessing.
Igor

By: Carl Rytterfalk

Carl Rytterfalk — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:18:19 +0000

So a bulb would give continues light, no flash right? That would make it easier to “form the light” but also harder to get good shutter speeds, I’m using a 105mm and shutter speed is important. (need to make them very “square looking” (see picture) - what speed do you get and what Watt are we talking?

By: Scott Greiff

Scott Greiff — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:44:36 +0000

I’m no pro at it, but I recently picked up a nylon tent that comes with a bunch of different color nylon sheets that you can swap out. The thing I don’t like about it is that you get a bunch of bumps and unevenness that can be distracting. I imagine you could blow out the exposure to “hide” the irregularities, but if your objects are white to begin with…

I bet the Strobist (or one of his followers) would have something on product shots. I remember someone/him talking about black granite tile that you can pick up at a home products store.

I also like using full spectrum fluorescent bulbs as they run cool and offer continuous light.

Again, not a pro, but I like the results I get from this little setup.