product photography help PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!

[speedbo]

Hello there!

Thank the Lord, I found this forum!!

I'm a junior marketing manager for a small giftware company in Victora, Australia, i started at the company maybe 6 months ago, upon starting I noticed the photos that we were using for our catalogues weren't the best, they were done in house and didn't look professional AT ALL! not even close...

ANYWAY, i was hoping that someone / everyone could give me some assistance!

Firstly, after PLEADING with the managing director, he said i could go out and buy a roll of white paper and some lights, so below *should* be a picture of our current setup...






.... does anyone have any suggestions after seeing this image? I have some white acrilyc board which i bought and use to diffuse the light aswell.

Secondly, the "IT guy" at my workplace keeps telling me that we need some solid black acrilyc sheeting for taking shots of Glass and Stainless Steel cookware. I've seen the photos he's getting the idea for this from, and i don't like them. Does anyone have any suggestions for taking photos of glass and stainless steel saucepans with my current setup? I can maybe squeeze another $150 out of my boss so any small things i could probably get...

Thridly, i thought to further demonstate my abilites (which are far from professional!) and what i'm getting with the setup, i have attached a couple more photos...





hope i did the links right...

the materials of the products i need to take photos are the following:
Porcelain
Glass Vases and Wine GLasses ( coloured and clear),
Stainless Steel Cookware,
Blenders,
Plastic,
Bone China,
woodware (bamboo)
any assistance with the above would be REALLY appreciated!

Anyway.. any input would be SO VERY APPRECIATED!

I'm really happy in this job and i would really like to impress my boss so that he listens to what i have to say more. I would be extremly grateful if anyone can help me....

i don't think this will be the last post from me.... i'm going to need alot of help, and i hope that you all will be able to help me. Conversely, i hope that with the help that is given to me i can *someday* help another newbie on this forum!

Thanks HEEEEAPS and in advance!
speedbo

[Photo-John]

First of all, note that I moved your post to the Studio and Lighting forum. It's not that you posted in the wrong place, just that I thought you'd get better advice on the Studio and Lighting forum.

The lights you have are going to be sort of limiting. What you really need are a couple of decent tungsten lights with softboxes. But if you're really limited on cash, you can try either buying or building a light tent. Here's a link to a few so you can see what I mean:

http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?p...o=light%20tent

A light tent will allow you to pretty much eliminate shadows without having to get new lights or other light modifiers.

I'm not sure about the black acrylic. You should be able to photograph reflective materials fine with a light tent. If you don't want to use the light tent, you should paint the walls and ceiling black to eliminate reflections. I'd do that, anyway.

Hopefully someone else has something to recommend. That's all I've got for now. Glad you found us.

[Peter_AUS]

You could also try using a circularising polarising filter to cut down on the reflections as well. Take not that it won't work on metalic objects.

As John said you really need to get much better lighting for this sort of things, and either a light tent or softboxes as John has suggested. Otherwise you end up with all the reflections and shadows as you have done here. Although they aren't that bad.

[Clemmie]

I admire your low-budget ingenuity - and the results you've gotten so far. Also understand about the boss being a tightwad. I've done a lot of eBay ad pictures with a similar setup - and typically draw nearly twice the price of competitors, simply by having better pictures.

Given the stated budget limitations, I would go for -

* The Circular Polarizer - limited effect on metallic glare, but does wonders with glass reflections.

* At least Two more of those Halogen Lights - you need a bit more light, from what I see. The additional units would also allow you to light from more angles, for better manipulation or elimination of shadows, as desired.

* A few White Bedsheets - which you can use in rigging a Light Tent. Can also hang one up to block a reflection, if that's ever a problem. And they can make a nicely textured alternative to your white paper base, when desirable.

* And.....A Fire Extinguisher - just in case anything gets a bit too close to those hot lights! Throw in a Smoke Detector while you're at it - it can detect a smoldering sheet before you can smell it, in a lot of cases.

I'd go with that, and hold off on repainting the place for a while. Re-do the catalog and double sales first, developing your skills along the way and generally impressing the boss - THEN press for a 'real studio' budget, to soar to even greater heights.

[Irakly Shanidze]

All you need for product photography on the budget is 1 (one) main light and 1 (one) background light. If you want to go fancy, two background lights will be better. Obviously, hard lighting is a bad choice, so you have to find a cheap and safe (this is important) way to soften that main light of yours. The cheapest alternative would be to bounce the light from a white non-flammable panel like drywall or something. All ancillary lights that you ever need in product photography can be substituted by small cardboard reflectors with white or silver surface. It takes ten minutes to make one by glueing a piece of white paper or wrinkled kitchen foil to a rectangular A4-sized piece of cardboard and attach a little triangular piece of cardboard to a back of the rectangle at 90 degrees to make it stable in an upright and slightly tilted back position. You will actually need at least three of these reflectors, but if you are not lazy to make an extra one and paint it matte black (or glue a piece of black velvet to it), you will have a great tool for blocking light that you do not need.
The background light (or lights) should be used not to though light on the background, but rather to shine through it. Just but the light behind your white roll, and there you have a glowing base. If you use two lights and put one behind the background and another on under it vertically, you will have two glowingspots that can be colored by inserting appropriate gels between the lights and the background.

[Irakly Shanidze]

I did not say that John's idea would not work, on the contrary. Light tent is a marvelous tool, and it is extremely easy to use, but it does not give enough flexibility if you need to shoot something on a coloured background.