As I promised in the previous post, I have some new stuff, this time I’m showing a simple setup using two lights.

This setup is based on the previous one, you can read here (Dramatic Product Photography using just one light and a grid) while adding a new light to paint the background.

The main light aimed at the object from above and through a simple EBay grid for flash and the second one is from low-behind with some small flash gel pack you can get a amazon for about 10$ and my DIY Gel Flash holder .

I include here an image of the setup:

 The flash on the floor is directed to the wall behind the miniature toy lighting the background and the main light lighting the bear from above.

 So how would you do it? Please cpmment your thoughts below!

Related posts:

1. 5 Basic studio lighting setups Hey, wondering the web I found this nice site (I...
2. Dramatic Product Photography using just one light and a grid Hey, I remmeber a piece at McNielly about using an...

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Hey, I remmeber a piece at McNielly about using an umbrella over your models head pointet from above just down on him.This makes a very dramatic look to the model (I didn’t found the image that I reffer to as it was on one of his DVDs – recommended) .

So why don’t make the same thing with your product phtographs?

I acctually made that setup in about 10 minuts, pretty fast. So what do do and how?

Part one – one light:

What I used here?

1. Small model doll.
2. background- none (there is a wall just 10cm behind).
3. One flash (580EXII) shooting throught a grid.
4. Testing exposure.
5. Image settings : Canon 5DII, Canon 100mm, f1/16, 1/125sec, ISO 1250 Canon 580EXII 1/32 full power.

Take a look a the fast product photography setup:

I must say that it was realy about 10 mintes to set up,so you are welcomed to try it yourself too.

Next apisode will be about two lights similar setup but much more colorfull, so keep visiting.

Feel free to comment here for more tips and thoughts.

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Hey, I’ve been asked by a good friend of mine (Zehavit) to come and shoot some images of their fun science learning packages for children. There are many easy science experiments that the children learn while doing fun things. Those kits are a very useful thing and the childrens love it!!! The photographs I’ll take will be used for the package back to show some of the ingredients each kit includes.

For this product setup I used 2 Canon speedlight flashes, on the tripod a Canon 580EXII and on the other side (on the table) a Canon 430EX, both flashes triggered by another Canon flash (550EX).Flashes set to manual power, the main light – Canon 580EXII set to 1/4 of maximum power and the small 430EX used as a fill light on the right side bounced by the wall set to 1/16 of full power. Camera also set to manual mode Iso 500, f/10, 1/200th sec white balance – manual (taken with a gray card).

Here are some results that came out of that simple product photography setup, feel free to comment and share your product photography photographs!!!

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One of the most popular question on the web, when starting to learn photography is how do improve your product photography.

Somehow you don’t have to own an online ebay shop in order to be interested in product photography.It simply a common task to do when you start to explore your photography.You don’t have to ask a model to participate in a shootout, you can do it in your bedroom or living room, you can use studio strobes or a simple reading lamp.

So I can’t put the finger why, but every one will do that in one way or an other.

Surfing over flicker.com (which is a great site for photography inspiration) I found this simple setup which I thinks beats my simple product photography tutorial. All this guy uses is a couple of papers arranged in a simple “box” setup for white background and reflector. The only downside for this is that it will suit only small product as this setup is small. Shooting this lens that he did is already to big. So check it out and start learning and experimenting!

Credit for Josh Liba.

Here is a link to Josh’s Flickr gallery: Josh Liba

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If you read part one of this tutorial about product photography using gel filters, its your time to move forward to part II.

In this part we’ll learn how to use the gel filter set and the DIY small flash grid

So get in and see how you can take those pictures too!!!

This is the list of stuff I used in this section:

• Products to photograph.
• A white foam board, costs about 2$ for a 70cm*100cm piece, will be great as a reflector too.
• Two of camera flash units.
• DIY gel filter holder and some gels.
• DIY grid for small flashes.
• Camera.
• Good luck!!!

This is the setup usd me to take those photographs, it takes 2 minutes to set:

What you actually see here is a normal chair that holds a white foam. Under the chair I put a Canon 550EX flash with the DIY gel filter holder set to narrow beam as using the manual zoom option 105mm, that will get the narrow blue light behind the camera instead of a blue splash. On the camera right there is a tripod that holds my Canon 580EXII with a DIY grid for small flash. That’s all 2 minutes and you get ready to shoot those great looking photographs. Ahh almost forgot , my 40D camera is set to Iso 200,1/125 sec,f/7.1, and both flashes are set to 1/4 full power.

Lets get going, and see some samples of what you can achieve with that simple setup!!!

Share your thoghts with as and place your comments here!!!

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The one who know me ,that I love running.

In this set I’ll show you how I took that shoe product photograph.

You’ll have to forgive me that my Adidas shoes aren’t clean and new ,as I bought them two days before the shootout and had to test them for two runs.My bottom line is that they are very very very light.And I don’t recommend you to run with those pair of shoes during the winter,cause it might freeze your toes (mine froze…),but lets talk business.

If you sell shoes you’ll probably want to take some good photographs of  your merchandise to upload to the web and try to sell it online.Whether its for your email use, online store or your Ebay store,You’ll need a good picture to drive the visitors to buy the shoe!

You can get into the video  in the link below,but to make it simple,here are some tips about this shoe photography setup:

Here is my second video,about product photography.You may well see that I took the shot with very simple setup,and it took me less than 10 minutes to make that picture work!

The video is a real one by one timeline of the shootout itself:

Shoe Photography – keep in simple from diyphotography on Vimeo.

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Hey,

I saw a great tutorial in Stefan’s site (you can get the link in my favorites).He have been shooting products (hand made great looking funny dolls ).Stefan uses a professional studio and pro flashes for his work and you can see the diargrams of some of his studio sessions in his blog. I this piece I tried to get as close to his job, using small of camera flashes for this product photography. So get in and learn how to do it on the budget!

This is the list of things I used in this section:

• Products to photograph.
• Black metallic platform ,I use in this site an IKEA magnetic dashboard, but you can improvise with almost everything.
• Two of camera flash units.
• DIY gel filter holder and some gels.
• DIY grid for small flashes.
• Camera.
• Good attitude!

Let see the setup:

Sorry for it being a little dark, but you can see is that:

• On tripod there is a flash (canon 550EX) with my DIY grid for small flash on a tripod aimed at the product I have to take picture of, set to 1/4 power.
• On the floor beneath the black metallic platform I had a Canon 580EXII with my DIY gel filter holder with some colored gels, set to a narrow light using the 105mm manual zoom .power 1/4.
• You can add a small white reflector to control the image contrast (setup right side).
• Camera: Canon 40D  f/7.1, Iso  200, 1/125 sec.

Yep that simple as that!

Here are some more photos I took with that simple setup!

Tips:

1. You can see in some of the pictures that the background looks different,that because I changed the manual zoom settings to wider than 105mm.Try to experience the background changes by controlling the flash zoom in and out.
2. You could change the gelled flash output power so you’ll get a brighter or darker background.
3. Change once in a while the gels filters and find out what color suits you best.

If you have other tips or want to show as your own examples,please share!!!

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Hey you guys!in this post I’ll instruct you how to shoot very good shots of your product using just one small camera flash ,in this case I used a Canon 580EXII in a photek brolly which is the most powerful lighting modifier on budget that I know!I use here a 46 inch brolly (the nick name for an umbrella softbox).I don’t remember how much i cost me a couple of years ago,when my friend Chen went to the B&H and bought this piece for me (thanks Chen).

So get in and see the rest of this tutorial and more examples!I have two variations for this product photography setup : in the first setup I use only the brolly, while in the second one I add a reflector on the opposite side of the brolly light for some more fill light.As you’ll soon see the brolly gives a very big light source and therefor a very good light quality!

So this is the first set:

The set details:

• Camera: Canon 40D set to – iso500,1/125th sec , f1/7.1.This is my basic start for most of the time when I use a brolly or a light modifier that as some loose of light.
• Light: a Canon 580EXII set to 1/4th full power in a big and nice 46” photek brolly (there are cheaper brands on Ebay if you want to start with something else).
• Setup background: a piece of paper roll taped to the door (if you tape it to the wall get in mind you’ll have to paint the wall every time you take some pictures…).

This is it,lets what we have:

As I used a big brolly,the shadows are relatively small,but if the annoys you,here is the second set where I added a white foam board as a reflector:

If you’ll try hard you’ll see that the shadows on the products left is smaller.on the shoe point the shadows beneath the shoe are less visible:

Well this is all,I hope you got something out of this tutorial.

Please if you have some suggestions,feel free to put your comments below.

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We all know how important it is to get a good picture in order to get a good selling page in your eBay.com store.

A good picture will generate more traffic to you store and will probably will get you  better conversion rate,that means in simple words MORE MONEY!!!

Here I’ll cover the basics of how to shot a good picture with a low budget studio equipment.One light tent and three flash units might cost you less than  90$.Get this and you’ll be ready for your eBay product photography homebased studio.

In this session I’ll explain you guys here how to use a simple cheap light tent a 80cm big for your photographs to put on eBay.This a relatively big light tent to use,but it will get you great results for also medium size products as well as small ones.This box costs about 20USD maybe less,so it will be a wast not to get one if you shoot more that a couple of products .In this set I used three flash lights,I use Canon based system but there are some less expensive alternatives on the net for flashes,some starts about 20USD.That means you could get a great worth of value package for your product photography studio at about 80USD more or less.

So how I set up the set?Easy 5 minutes and you are done!!!

• Open the light tent (well that is easy).
• get the lights stand in rear,right and left side of the light tent.Manual mode.1/8 of maximum power.
• camera on tripod set on my favorite setting : iso400, 1/125sec,f/11.
• start shoot and and see how you need to change the settings in order to get better results.

This is what you’ll get just after 5 minutes of work.

In the first picture the left flash fired on a very low power,the result of that low power can be seen in less details on the product left side.One down side for this photograph is that you’ll have to photoshop out the less lightened part of the picture.

In the second eBay product photograph example , we set the left flash to fire.You can immediately can see the influence of that flash.There is still some photoshop to do to make that picture perfect.but its a good one for your eBay product photo.

Fine tuning will be done with photoshop and you are ready to publish it in your eBay online shop!

In addition to 5 minutes of photoshop maneuvers and you get a high quality eBay product photograph!

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The cookie post started when I had a newly wed couple that came to my office to get their wedding album.I had to bring some goods in to serve the guys,so I went don’t to the local super market,having only a couple of minutes to choose the best sweet for my visitors,I decided to go with the chocolate chips cookies that I all ways love!

When I took the box from the self I said to myself ,”hey that’s a great photo on the box I want to do that too!”

Here  is one of the first  pics that I took:

Get In and read the rest of the story (I bet you’ll want those chocolate cookies too)!

So The first thing I’ll like to show you guys is the setup:

As you can see the cookie photograph was token at home in my back office.The camera on tripod,the cookies on a white table plate,the plate is on white plastic perspex panel that I love so much and use in many of my product photographs.As for the lighting ,there was an opened door on the left side of the plate and the is a semi opened window that you can see in the picture behind the computer screen.That simple and that easy!By the way the golden reflector has no influence on the picture…

After I thought about how to shoot the set,I started to test the lighting for the cookies photographs.If I use chocolate or some melting objects on the set I test the light on some object with about the same size as the cookies I’m going to shoot.This is the the testing shot:

Take in mind that the cookie photographs taken in this set is under regular in home light,natural light I set the camera to a high 1000ISO and started with shallow depth of field of f/2.8 and 1/80th sec.This will get me the nice dramatic look as in the picture that is shown in the post header.Here are some other examples with those settings f/2.8:

In the next cookies photographs I changed the depth of field of  f/5.6, this lets me more details from the cookie and the props I used to give the picture more interest.Please take in mind that that I slowed down the shutter speed to 1/25th sec.I used a tripod which you’ll must use unless you have more light in the scene.I also used a timer to reduce camera shake.This is what we got out from the cookies shoot:

Here it is for  this set,I really hope you enjoyed reading.Please share your thoughts and pictures with us.

PEACE

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