Review : Photographing Your Products - General Guideline

Initially as you review this outline, it may appear somewhat daunting to collect together all of what you need to, however we can assure you with some effort, the results will be well worth the time.

What You Will Need to Shoot Your Own Photography

ROOM : A room available to you that you can set up and is at least 10' x 8' average size. It is preferred that you can you leave your equipment set up in this room untouched for few days or so rather then tear down each time you photograph.

CAMERA : Have a camera that is capable of shooting fully Manual and in RAW format.

BACKDROP : For your background (white or grey usually) you need a 9' or 4.5' foot wide seamless role of white paper, available through professional photographic supplies stores, costs around $75 and is 9' x 100' usually. You are free to decide on any type of background.

You will need to have a way of mounting it 'high' up against one wall such as two light stands or brackets.

Take your seamless roll of paper and through the center cardboard sleeve, you put a 'pole' through so that it sticks out a few inches on either side and you can then clamp on the light stands or hang on brackets.

LIGHTING : In regards to lighting, there are many small portable studio lighting setups that are reasonably inexpensive (around $500.00) - http://www.bhphotovideo.com (click on Lighting & Studio).

When it comes to the type of light that you wish to use, they are generally classified as compact fluorescent, incandescent or flash. If you are going to use live models, then you need to go with flash lighting. If you are going to set up on a mannequin or table top, then we would recommend compact fluorescent lighting (not incandescent).

You will need 3 lights, two will light the background to make it as light or as dark as you wish, and one light in the front will light the product.

For the background two lights, they should have open reflectors and barn doors.

For the front single light, it should either be an 'umbrella' or 'soft box'.

*** All lights need to be of the same type. ***

Photographing Your Products - Setup & Lighting Techniques

We have assembled and/or produced ourselves a series of short movies that you can reference to help guide and teach you photographic techniques along with how to prepare your photographic images in Photoshop/Automotor and create a professionally consistent and polished presentation of your products.

We hope you enjoy these very informative movies and invite you to suggest any techniques that you feel we have not covered that are important to you.