Great product photography helps your products sell, It isn’t rocket science, product photographs are often the only way customers get to interact with the product before a purchase.Here’s a quick look at everything you need to know to get started. !Do note that we are not going to be geeking out on what aperture size is best or whether Halogen Lights or Tungsten Lights are better. These are quick guidelines for someone getting started. !Contents!!• Hire an agency!• The right gear!• Lighting!• Show some scale!• Photograph a lifestyle!• Include multiple angles!• Touching up images!!!!

Great product photography: A how to guide

Yes!!! photography is often time consuming and can be quite expensive. If you are a small team and you think your time would be better spent doing other things, find someone else to do it for you. If you decide to take the plunge and do it yourself then read on.

Hire an agency

The right gear is going to have quite an effect on your product photography. There’s a lot written on this subject on blogs elsewhere, so we’ll keep it as brief as we possibly can.

The right gear

• While a more expensive camera would usually give you more features and greater image quality, the added image quality wouldn’t really make much of a difference unless you need very large images.

• The Canon Rebel T3i, Nikon D3200, Canon Rebel SL1 and the Pentax K-500 are some great cameras if you are on a budget.

• Of course you can still choose to whip out your iPhone and start clicking right away and hey the Nokia Lumia 1020 seems like a great device too if you are going to use your mobile phone. For a more comprehensive list of the cameras available and their features click here.

• Usually a few strobe lights, some umbrellas and a basic lighting tent should be enough to get you started. If you are of a DIY bent of mind you can find some interesting resources on strobe lights here and here.

• The simple rule with lenses is that the longer the focal length of the lens the more distant objects you can photograph, a 50mm lens should be enough for most basic product photography needs.

• If you can, set up a tripod and take the pictures from a short distance away using a lens with a higher focal length as products look a little weird when photographed from up close.

As most photographers will tell you, good lighting is a huge deal with product photography. While natural light photographs can be really amazing when done well, most product photographs often use artificial light.

Hire an agency

• One easy way to ensure consistent lighting is to set up a lighting tent. You can purchase one of these for around $100 or so.

• The Canon Rebel T3i, Nikon D3200, Canon Rebel SL1 and the Pentax K-500 are some great cameras if you are on a budget.

• You could also very easily build one for yourself with a box, some white fabric, Thick paper and a lighting source(daylight lamps will do in a pinch). Simply cut away the sides and the top of the box, glue some fabric on, line the back of the box with some thick paper of some light color, preferably white and you are good to go.

• If you are going to be including models in your photo shoots then you might need more advanced lighting fixtures including multiple strobes, umbrellas, triggers and more to get good image quality. Read more on lighting fixtures here.

• Once you’ve got the lighting set up, click away, experiment until you find something that you are happy with.

• While taking multiple photos ensure that you have consistent exposure on your photographs.

• Shadows while often detrimental to an image can sometimes give an interesting 3D effect to photos, again, experiment and find out something that works for you.

Show some scale

• Its hard to get a handle on how big or small a product is in real life unless you have a frame of reference.

• Do remember that not all product photographs need this for example a picture of coffee mug doesn’t really need a frame of reference.

• Some people leave rulers or other objects in the vicinity of the object for this purpose. Models are a good way of doing this as well.

Photograph a lifestyle

• You don’t have to think of product photography as just a means to show off your product features, you can also use it to build a story around your product.

• A basic example would be, say you are trying to photograph a bottle of wine, you could photograph the bottle of wine on a rustic looking wooden table with a naturally lit vineyard in the background.

• Another good reason to try this is that often this activity can also help with giving some sense of scale in the images.

Include multiple angles

• Include multiple photographs taken from different angles. This will give the shopper a proper idea of what the product looks like and inspire some trust as well.

• It should also give you the liberty to experiment with some of the images to either build a story around them or introduce some other elements to give a sense of scale in the images.

Touching up images

• Products pick up a lot of smudges, dust, dirt etc… during handling and this can reduce the quality of the images significantly. Luckily for those of us who are a little clumsier, there is Photoshop :).

• Photoshop will also fix most other image problems from your photo shoots.

• Do let us know in the comments below if you’d like to us to cover any specific issue in more detail.

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