Product Photography Tips?

[BestLegs]

Actually, large format cameras are still used. It's a Toyo View with a Leaf Aptus digital back (provided by school of course), not using film --hydrogen bomb yes! especially since the back itself is $15,000 :/

And yes, i painted in the screen and headphones for the iPod touch using a vector mask in Photoshop

[BestLegsinHD]

flip through some magazines or look stuff up online. photography has lots of things in common with music production lol. i find ref tracks and try to mimick some thangs to learn new techniques.




edit;
large format is SOOOOOOOOO 124451 YEARS AGO. you amateurs should stick with dslrs and leave the big toys to people like me

[ctrld]

<OT>

iphone picture definitely looks like a render to me.

I have to disagree. take a closer look at the GUI. it's almost certainly a photograph, and a very good one too.

</OT>

[faeruithir]

I think we're getting a little off topic here. Even if you just have a point and shoot camera you can get some good shots with good lighting. I'm still curious to know what your needing to fix in Photoshop. With that info we can tell you what you need to do to correct the image in the camera.

Sorry for the late reply but anyway

For cameras, I have an Olympus DSLR. The exact specs I am not sure of right now, since I am away from home working an internship for 2 months.

I had to pack light, so what I have with me is an olympus point and shoot. Its a Olympus Mju Tough 6010: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/cam...-619917/review

What I usually have to fix in photoshop when using my DSLR is color balance, levels, hue/saturation, along with some heavy editing with brushes and stuff to make the subject look better.

I'm curious as to if its possible to get DECENT quality product photos out of a point and shoot with little to no manual settings. Of course it won't be as good as the DSLR, but its what i've got with me..

Also, I hate lugging the DSLR around. If I can get decent quality from a point and shoot, I would much rather carry that around and get more shots.

[Ola]

What I usually have to fix in photoshop when using my DSLR is color balance, levels, hue/saturation, along with some heavy editing with brushes and stuff to make the subject look better.

Most photographers do some sort of post processing on their pictures. Even if it's just in the raw conversion (which is pretty damn powerful already). If you want to minimize this part of the work, make sure to get white balance etc. right already when shooting. You could, if the camera allows, adjust the curves, saturation etc. for the jpg conversion. But shooting RAW, and doing the adjustments and sharpening in the computer will yield better results.

I'm curious as to if its possible to get DECENT quality product photos out of a point and shoot with little to no manual settings. Of course it won't be as good as the DSLR, but its what i've got with me..

Also, I hate lugging the DSLR around. If I can get decent quality from a point and shoot, I would much rather carry that around and get more shots.

It's all about light. Even an iphone can get you pretty decent results: http://fstoppers.com/iphone/.

The DSLR offers some advantages of course, the most important ones being: shorter depth of field, lower noise, higher dynamic range and less shutter lag.

[photojojo]

If your adjusting levels a bunch that tells me your probably under exposed. Put a lot of light on whatever your shooting, make it really bright. Then put the camera on a low iso, like under 200 if you can. The sensor sizes on the point and shoot cameras are much smaller than those in a DSLR so the higher iso's don't really look good.

Put the camera on a tripod and let the camera do the figuring on exposure. As long as the light is even throughout the camera should do pretty good. You can usually set the saturation level in the camera so that would keep you from having to do it in photoshop. Another tip if you shutter speeds are kind of low and your using a tripod is to take the shot with the timer. That way you pushing the button doesn't shake the camera.

The seamless background can help a lot for making things pop. Just about anything will work, I use poster board with the bottom half tapes to a desk and the top half taped to the wall giving me a nice even curve. That said I only do three or four shots like that a year so some others might have some better advise.

[haybot]

For product photography i would say an even light is the best. The best way to achieve this on a budget is with an external flash (which is more or less best for everything). The trick is to bounce the light of the ceiling by pointing it upwards. So the subject is illuminated smooth and even.

[ricksteves2011]

spam

[Ed Paris]

Instagram app for iphone! Hipsters love that shit!

[mostapha]

I stopped reading here.

Everything on strobist.com is gold IMO.

This might help with shooting some stuff.
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07...to-studio.html

+1.

If you're talking about product photos and anyone mentions anything but lighting or backgrounds as a first step, they probably don't know what they're doing.

Lighting is the #1 thing you should be worried about, followed by your background…for which you can use a big roll of white large-format printer paper.

any tips about camera settings or anything?

Yeah…your settings should be right.

That's a serious answer to your question.

Everything you need to know about exposure: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/drive-your-camera.html
and
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/modern-exposure.htm

I'm not kidding. I consider myself a halfway decent photographer, and except for really weird lighting conditions when it's actually faster to shoot manual, I do everything in program shift exposure…film or digital…with or without lighting. It works beautifully. Modern cameras are really good at flash exposure for product photos.