Product Photography

[Dazza]

HI
I have been running a my own website for about a year now I sell cosmetics www.blushedcosmetics.co.uk .I have been adding more photography equipment every now and then and the results have been getting better .

But I am still not happy.

My Kit:
EOS 300D
50mm Macro Lens
3ft Cubelite (tent)
Prolinchrome 23 Studio Light.

I am finding it hard to get a good white balance products are either to bright or the background is too dark.

I am thinking about ditching the studio light and getting a set of tungsten lights. So then hopefully what I see will be what I get.

Any help regarding this would be very much appreciated.

Thanks Dazza

[JCPhoto1]

Your problem might be not enough light to cover both the background and the subject. If you already own a flash it would be more cost effective to just get another strobe than invest in hot lights. Hot lights aren't going to solve your lighting problem any better. Think about making a table to put your tent on that has a translucent bottom and back. You can get you light to enter and surround your subject better.

Your statement about white balance is a little confusing:

(I am finding it hard to get a good white balance products are either to bright or the background is too dark.)

White balance is a color temperature adjustment not a light intensity control. It would help to get a light meter to help with checking flash levels and get even coverage. Set your white balance to flash and until you can get a meter you'll have to experiment with exposure to get what you want. Hope this helped. Feel free to ask more questions if you have any.

[Dazza]

Thank you for your reply. Not enough light might be the problem as the cubelite (tent) that I have is one meter cubed.

The problem I think is that I don’t know enough about photography and how to use my camera properly . Currently to get an OK image I am using my camera on the Manual setting with a shutter speed of 60 and a AV of 14. If a picture comes out too dark of too light I will change the AV by + - 1.

If I used a constant lighting source would it be easier for me as I could use the cameras auto settings?

I don’t mind spending on new lights if they will give me a better result and are easier to use. What lighting source is best?

Thanks Again

Dazza

[JCPhoto1]

The tungsten lights would be a good idea too. You can set up the shot and get the look right without needing a meter. Just use your camera's meter. You can set your white balance to tungsten for them or use a custom setting. I looked up the Rebel and it does have a custom white balance setup feature. What you can do is setup your hot lights and hold 3 paper coffee filters layered over the lens when you take the reading. It will give you a perfect WB setting to use with your lights in the tent. It does the same thing the $130. Expo Disk( http://www.expodisc.com/) does at a cheaper price. I just got the latest B & H Photo catalog and noticed they have a lot of reasonably priced hot light setups that would work well for your tent. Tungsten lights are what come with most of the tent kits from what I see on the web. Go to the B&H Photo site (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/)and look up continuous lighting. Two or three 750watt or 1000 watt lights should do you fine.

With these lights you might want to put the camera on program mode and see what it chooses as it's settings. Then you can go back on manual and bracket up and down to see what you get and experiment until you like what you see. That way you can get by without a meter for a while and have some pretty good results. That's the place to adjust your EV to get the best shot.

I hope I didn't get to confusing here but if you have any more questions or a clearer explaination feel free to ask. I do have a tendency to ramble a bit.

[JCPhoto1]

On the B&H main page click the button on the right side of the page that says free photo lessons. There is a lesson for shooting jewlery in a tent. It looks like what you might need.

[Dazza]

HI Jim

I went and bought a set of tungsten lights yesterday. I have attached a couple of shots. What do you think?

Thanks Again

Dazza

[JCPhoto1]

Very nice. It looks like you solved your lighting problems. I like the subdued shadows. Just enough to give it definition but it doesn't distract. I liked the highlights on the metal too. Very even coverage. With these lights it should be a lot easier to see the shot and get consistant results. Congratulations.

[Dazza]

Thanks Again for all your help

[artifactor]

Though the original images are quite compressed and some of the "shaft" of the brush is missing image data, you could enhance these images easily in Photoshop. Once you've nailed the white point settings on your camera, try to adjust the levels in photoshop. I've posted a couple of examples based on the shots you posted. Hopefully this helps: