Hdr Product Photography
Elenor Waas
A really affordable option is to go to your local drug store or art store and buy some poster board, often for as low as $7 for 10 sheets. Remember to look for pure white. It will be more difficult to turn an off-white or cream background to pure white in edits.
Adding black foam board to the sides, just outside of the photo, behind the product, will create a dark edge on the white product. Combine a white bounce card on the front and black bounce cards behind the product for a more sophisticated lighting setup.
You can buy foam boards on Amazon or at a local drug store. Keep in mind, this is just a white card, so you might be able to simply balance a sheet of white printer paper or use a piece of poster board.
Set your ISO to 100. The ISO controls the sensitivity of the sensor. The higher the ISO the more noise there is. Typically, the lowest ISO you can set your camera to is ISO 100, so set it there if you can.
This is the best setting for this type of work because nothing will be moving or changing as you take your pictures. In manual, change your f-stop to the highest number, which will give you the greatest depth of field.
Preview the image on the back of the camera through live view. Everything is probably pretty dark, which is OK. Now, switch to your shutter speed and rotate the dial to make it bright enough that the image is properly exposed. Your shutter number should be going up.
For example, your number may go from 1/60th to . These are fractions of a second that your shutter will be open for, and as the number lowers it will let more light in. Adjust this number until the preview of the image is correct.
Your camera may not have this either, but if it does, change the f-stop to the highest number. This should automatically adjust the shutter to be what the camera thinks it should be. This may be wrong, and you may need to use the exposure compensation dial to add light.
This simple white card is the single most important light modifier you have, and you can use it with everything. The light will bounce off the card and fill in all the shadows. How you position this card is a matter of taste, so try it at different angles to the product.
The retouching tasks associated with on-white photography can be tricky for someone without a lot of training, and tend to be the weak link for many people trying to photograph products themselves. So, instead of trying to learn advanced Photoshop, you can outsource it.
You want to resize the actual image to fit the container before you upload it to your website. Typically, resize images 1.5 times larger than the container so it looks good on a retina screen, which in this example would be 972 pixels square.
Like anything, there are limitations to DIY without getting serious with education and investing in professional equipment. Many people can shoot great photos in a single-light shooting environment, like with the natural window light strategies discussed above. However, to photograph difficult products, like clear and reflective products, requires a multi-light studio setup and a deep technical knowledge of photography.
After you learn the basics, choose a photo editing software for retouching your photos. This will help you prepare them for publishing on your website. You can also repurpose your photos to make ads and social media content.
Shooting multiple angles allows shoppers to see products from different perspectives. Some shoppers may prefer close-up shots. Others may want to see items straight on. Everyone can envision themselves using your product in different ways, which can lead to more sales.
Make sure to keep your camera and tripod in the same position during your shoot. Rotate the product if you want to change angles. If you rotate the product only, your final shots will have the same frame effect. This ensures consistency and reduces image editing after your photoshoot.
Detailed images give shoppers a closer look at specific product features. Leather retailer hardgraft uses detailed shots to show zippers, handles, and other unique features of its goods on its product pages.
Lastly, make sure to write great product descriptions. Product photos and descriptions work together to help customers understand your products. They also help influence purchasing decisions to increase sales for your ecommerce store.
By following this DIY product photography tutorial, you too can produce amazing images for your website. As you get more comfortable behind the camera, you can branch out into different types of photography.
This is why the best ecommerce websites not only have great products, but also great photos of their products. These images testify to the quality and value of your products and establish transparency into your ecommerce business.
One of the most common types of product photos, the individual shot contains only one object in the frame. These are often featured in product catalogs, banner images and throughout product pages to showcase individual products independently from the full collection.
Often used for product kits and collections, group photography displays the range and variety of your products and gives the customer a more complete view of your offering. These types of images are perfect for social media posts and advertisements, as they give shoppers a taste of your brand as a whole, rather than just one product.
But with scale shots, you can help your customers get a better idea of the actual size of a product by comparing it with other everyday items, similar to this example by Ivory. This will help your customers visualize your products in their everyday lives and increase their confidence when purchasing online.
For products with small intricacies that require a close-up, including jewelry and other small items, detailed shots help highlight specific product features that a traditional photo might not catch.
Luckily, taking high-end photos is far more accessible today than it was 10 years ago. Considering most of us already have a 12-megapixel iPhone camera in our pockets, and many top-tier editing software is becoming more affordable, improving your ecommerce photography is probably simpler than you think.
All you have to do is push the back of the chair against a wall and tape the craft paper on the wall above the chair, allowing it to fall to the ground. This will create a clean transition between the vertical and horizontal planes whenever you position your product on the chair.
Another affordable option for a backdrop is to build your own light tent, otherwise called a lightbox. This is a wireframe box with translucent walls which helps create an evenly distributed light around the object in focus.
This product photo by Santa Monica Seafood. is a great example of natural lighting. Their website features a buffet of food photography, much of which utilizes natural lighting and gives their products a more dramatic effect.
Regardless of how you adjust them, one should serve as your key light, placed in front of your product, and the other should be your fill light, positioned on the opposite side, back or above your product.
To really bring your brand to life, these photos feature your product in action, often photographed with a model or other complementary products. This helps your customers envision what it would look like to use your product in their everyday life and create a more personal connection with your brand.
With a mix of product images, lifestyle shots and videos scattered across its site from the homepage to the final checkout, every stage of the purchase journey contains a visual element that keeps the shopper engaged.
Squareshot: With locations in New York, Los Angeles, Austin and Chicago, Squareshot allows merchants to ship products to their studio and receive high-quality product photos within a matter of days.
Needless to say, you definitely do not need to implement all of these improvements at once. Creating consistent, high-quality product photos is not something that happens overnight, so it may take some trial and error to achieve the results you want.
Our team of experienced product photographers shoot and edit a huge variety of products every day from our Las Vegas production studio. Getting started is easy and our streamlined production process is guided by real people to help you every step of the way.
Capture the essence of your products in custom-tailored settings with Lifestyle Photography. Perfect for showcasing your items in use, this approach helps customers envision your products in their daily lives.
While having the camera on a tripod, you set the aperture to f/11 or f/16, ISO to 100 and adjust the speed to get the desired exposure. You don't really care what the speed is, assuming that your subject is not moving (thus risking motion blur)
Unless you can change the lighting, don't use manual mode. Use Av mode and set the Aperture to f/16. Make sure you are also have AutoISO set. This way shutter speed and ISO can float to get a good exposure. If you find it too bright or too dark, use exposure compensation.
Nice setup. Make sure that you have a capable lens, and good post processing software. You will definitely need it.
If neither of you is familiar with the terms Exposure Triangle or depth of field , then I suggest that you do some web searches, and take a crash self-study course on the topics. Those are the basics of photography.
Light intensity from a flash drops off dramatically with distance, so keep your subject close to your background so that it receives as much light as the subject. Doing the reverse, making the distance between the subject and camera small, while making the distance to white background relatively far away can cause the background to appear dark grey.
BOTTOM LINE: Get a macro lens, and a robust tripod. Do a crash course in exposure triangle and depth of field and macro photography . Above all, practice and experiment. At close distances, you will most likely NOT be able to get the entire subject in focus in a single shot. This is where image stacking becomes useful, but you need software to do it.