Today, I am sharing a quick product shot.
Here’s the shot, of my “nifty fifty”, a 50mm f/1.4 lens:
And here’s how I shot it:
- I used a Canon 5D camera on manual at 100 ISO, f/4 and 1/125th second.
- The lens was on a table with a white sheet of Bristol Board underneath.
- The background was an improvised white background (I used a reflector).
- I used a 430EX flash with a Honl grid, diagonally above the lens, as the main light. The grid causes the dropoff from the centre.
- I used a 430EX flash with a Honl blue gel and a Speed Gobo to illuminate the background.
- I used e-TTL to fire the flashes, from my 7D’s pop-up flash (the 7D will support this, like Nikon cameras. On other Canon cameras I need to use a 580 EX flash on the camera to drive the remote flashes).
- I set a flash ratio of 8:1 a:b, where A was the main flash and B was the product flash.
All of which looked like this:
Simple. It only took a few minutes to set up, which is good since I was tired.
One tip: when shooting this type of product clean it well using a soft brush, or else you will spend hours in Photoshop or Lightroom aftereard, cleaning dust.
Great post. I’ve always wondered how to do this. I’ve had several requests to do stock photography and product photography. This gives me a great place to start.
Thanks. Glad that helps. I’ll post some more product tips forthwith – and do ask, if there’s something you’d like me to discuss in future posts.
clean dust in lightroom? didnt know that was possible…
Sure is – even though the clone and healing tools are not like the PS ones, they are very handy indeed.