Product and Bicycle Photography

[Arsbars]

As my websites grow I would like to make more studio photography of the product I'm reviewing. Right now I shoot with mostly my Rebel XTi, no accessories other than an occasional remote. Trying to learn concepts, start a "want list" and see what I can make do with at my own house now.

Here's some examples of what I would like to achieve :

http://urbanvelo.org/wordpress/wp-co...3/day-4-31.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alandav...n/photostream/

[Photo-John]

Well, I've definitely got some experience in this area. I don't shoot that many actual bikes in the studio, but I did just shoot the new Canfield 29er and now that I have my own house with a studio, I hope to be shooting more. And it's funny that you linked to a photo by Alan Davis. He's a really good friend and a member here (kafin8ed). I'll see if I can get him to post a bit about how he shoots. He's the main camera guy at Decline mag now. But I think that shoe photo was probably made when he was working for Bike.

The Urban Velo photo you posted looks like a classic 3 light setup to me. It could be just 2 lights, though. I use 2 Photoflex tungsten lights with big softboxes. I've been using them for almost 10 years and have seen no need to replace them. For product photography, which is 99% of what I do in the studio, they're the best. What you see is what you get and they're less expensive and easier to set up than strobes.

The main thing with studio work is to experiment and learn how light works. The basics are pretty simple - you have your main light (key light) and a second as a fill. Your main light defines your subject and the second light controls the shadow quality. The nice thing about tungsten hot lights like I'm using is you can just move them around and see what they do - no need to actually shoot a test to see what the light is really doing.

My reply is sort of general and vague. But I wanted to get back to you right away and give you a bare bones answer. I'm sure you want more specific information so fire away. I'm gonna give Alan a call now and see about getting him to jump in here, too :-)

[Arsbars]

What do you use as a back drop? What are good sites to find these lights or can I find them locally?

What am I looking cost wise to set up an "okay" home shop to start off with?

[kafin8ed]

Hmmm... It's ironic that the example you chose that I shot is barely classifiable as a studio photo. It looks likes a studio image, and that was the goal, but the only "studio" gear that I used to take it was a sheet of white paper (the backdrop) and a few white foam core boards - very low tech. One of the cool things about shooting small parts, shoes, etc... is you don't need big lights to illuminate the subject.

For this shoe photo I needed the pics fast and didn't want to set up studio lights because, basically it wasn't my studio so I didn't want to make a mess. But the back drop was all set up, I had one 550ex hotshoe flash, an off camera shoe cord and the foam core. I just used the foam core on both sides to bound the light all around, kinda like a light tent except for only four sided. Then I handheld the camera in one hand and held the flash in the other holding it above the shoe and to its left firing towards the right. Look at the shadow under the shoe you can follow it back to my hand position.

Easy and fast - sometimes it's fun to challenge yourself to try and achieve a pleasant look with minimalist gear. If this had been for a catalog or print magazine I'd have definitely used a more complex setup and spent more time but, as it was, everybody who saw the web review for these shoes was very happy with the way they looked.

I'm not sure if that's the answer you were looking for but basically with a few select pieces of gear it's actually pretty easy to get good photos. If you only want your light system to shoot non-moving (in studio) things then the lights John speaks of are a great way to go because you really do see what you get. Flash systems are trickier, but I like that I can use the flashes to freeze action so those are what I use — that and everywhere that I've worked has had a strobe setup so I've familiarized myself most with strobe systems.

[Photo-John]

What do you use as a back drop? What are good sites to find these lights or can I find them locally?

What am I looking cost wise to set up an "okay" home shop to start off with?

I just use plain, white "seamless" paper backdrop. I use a 53" wide roll for tabletop product stuff (cameras, lenses, etc) and a 103" roll for bikes and other large subjects. The small roll costs about $40 and the larger roll costs about $60, locally, if I remember right. You can order them from B&H for less.

For lights I'm using Photoflex Starlight 3200s. They're 1000 watt tungsten lights and I don't think they make them anymore. Here's a comparable single light setup with the new Starlight QL: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...verDome_1.html

For still subjects you don't really need that much light, though. Lower power lamps just mean longer exposures. You could even just use simple photo floods like these: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...arge_Two.html#

I also have a portable backdrop stand for my seamless. But that's not really necessary. For years I just tacked the paper to the wall. That works just fine. The stand is more convenient but it will cost you another $100+

If you wanted to be very frugal and you're willing to use low power photo floods, I think you could set up a solid studio for $500-$600. Again, the main difference between what I have and the less expensive lights is exposure time. The difference between the contiuous lighting that I use and the studio strobes that Alan uses is also exposure time. With high-powered strobes, Alan can use very fast shutter speeds and freeze his subject better. For product photography that's not so important - unless you want to work very fast and not use a tripod. I have to work slower than he does and I always use a tripod in the studio. But his lights are more difficult to set up and the cost a hell of a lot more - usually thousands just for the lights.

I hope we're helping you. I think you can get up and running for a reasonable amount of money and it's a good investment if you're serious about product photography. I've been using the same lights, stands and softboxes for going on ten years. The Starlights are so reliable I havene't even replaced a bulb in that time. I'm super, super happy with them.

[kafin8ed]

Also one thing to think about is depth of field. Flash power helps get lots of depth of field when you are shooting product close ups. It's not technically macro photography, but you can shoot a drive-side bike photos at F/4 and have it look great but if you do a close up of the pedal-to-crank assembly, especially at an odd angle, you need to shoot it at F/16 or more in effort to keep the subject in focus. If I want to shoot handheld (say 1/60th) at F/16 indoors then I need a powerful flash. Handheld at wide apertures is pretty easy, it's all the close ups that kill me and force me to crank up the power.

Lately however I've actually been turning down the power and reducing the depth of field, it just depends on how you want the image to look.

The best inexpensive strobes that I've found so far are Elinchrom 400BX models, they run about $500 each. I'd use 2 minimally, but prefer 3 - one for key, one for fill, one for background. You probably want at least one to use a softbox and the other two to have umbrellas, or even better have all three with softboxes - elinchrom makes a very good one.

You could also start by mounting a hotshoe flash on a lightstand and bouncing it into an umbrella - two of those would do a good job of illuminating a bike and or parts. The flashes need only be manually controlled and triggered with radio slaves so cheap generic Vivtar 285HV hotshoes would work great. Those only cost about $80-90 each and are surprisingly powerful. The radioslaves are not cheap however - expect to pay 200-300 per flash plus another 200-300 for the transmitter.

Optical slaves and cable trigger are even cheaper - if you are ONLY shooting in your studio, away from other photographers, that's the budget way to go, I think Wein makes optical slaves and the safe synch adapter that can plug into the cable and trigger everything - I imagine it'd be about $100-150 for the whole trigger setup.