Professional studio photography lighting techniques: Product photography

In today’s post I’m answering Adrian Delsi’s query. Adrian has sent in the following question:

What are the best techniques for doing product photography on white backgrounds? I have to shoot a ton at work but there is usually a ton of post. What can I do to speed it up?

Thank you Adrian for sending in your question. For product photography, there are a lot of ways that you can approach such a problem, and today I’m gonna mention two of the easiest, quickest, most effective and most professional of them.

 

Light tents

In product photography, small items and jewelry are often placed inside light tents, which are white translucent boxes that come in all sizes and shapes. These light tents are often placed outside in sunlight, or evenly lit from all sides indoors. The light enters the tent through the translucent surfaces of the box all soft and diffused, illuminating all shadows within the set. The objects are then placed inside the box, and the camera lens is fitted through a small opening on one of the box’s sides to take the shot. Light tents also do come in large sizes if you’re looking to shoot some larger products.

Professional studio product photography lighting techniques

When shooting products inside light tents, your photos are likely to come out a bit under-exposed. The reason why is that all that white within your scene (from the light tent sides) is gonna cause your light meter to think the scene is brighter than it actually is.  In turn, the camera is gonna close down for the shot, and that’s gonna show in the background of your capture which is not gonna be really white.

To overcome this issue, check your histogram to determine how much your shot is being under-exposed by. Since you need the background to be pure white, the histogram needs to be just touching the right-most hand-side of the scale representing the brightest parts of your scene. Once you determine how many stops you’re missing, you mainly have two options to make up for that:

  • If you’re shooting in manual mode, just ride up your camera settings up by the specified number of stops.

  • If you’re shooting in shutter priority or aperture priority modes, you can use exposure compensation to over-expose your shots by the needed amount.

 

White seamless backdrops

A white seamless backdrop or background is another great way to shoot amazing product photography on the cheap. You can basically use anything from special photography foam boards, to white cardboards, white sheets or anything else you have lying around.

Once you got your perfect white background, all you need to do is tape it up to a wall or clamp it in place in a way that it’s left hanging from the top all the way to the ground (or to the table top if you’re placing your products on a table). There should be a subtle curve at the corner where your vertical and horizontal surfaces meet so that it curves away from your shooting side upwards, making sure there’s no seam.

Once you have that in place, position your desired product to shoot in place on your white background, and then take a few shots. Check out your LCD screen to make sure your subject is positioned perfectly in place, and that your frame doesn’t fall outside the boundaries of your white background so that everything is nice and clean.

Professional studio product photography lighting techniques

Your camera might also tend to under-expose for your scene because of all that white going on in the background, so make sure you check your histogram to ensure the best results. In the case of under-exposure, follow the steps mentioned above to compensate and fix the problem.

 

Hope this was of help to you Adrian and anyone having this same problem.

Remember, if anyone has a photography question they’d like to ask, please head over to the Submit your Q! page and post your question right now, and I’ll be sure to answer all questions as soon as I can!

5 Comments

  1. Patricia @Seamless Background - September 7, 2011

    White background is usually one of the most commonly used backdrop in photography and I find it clean plus it gives more weight to the subject.

    Reply
  2. raymund picart - December 31, 2011

    hello diana, your website is always been inspiring me a lot, can you feature a topic on strobist 101? how we should start, basic lighting, budget..etc. because i believe through this will make your photo more better and inspiring. thanks a lot and a happy new year to your family. :D

    Reply
  3. raymund picart - February 11, 2012

    hello again diana, now i’m starting learning lights but stil confuse on setting up my pocketwizard MiniTT1 & FlexTT5 from my canon 7d and using three 580ex ii speedlight. What the differences from ratio from plus sign? i hope you can feature a topic in photography techniques. Thanks!

    Reply
  4. Diana Eftaiha - February 11, 2012

    forgot to link :P

    An Introduction to Indoor and Studio Flash Photography
    http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/lighting-articles/an-introduction-to-indoor-and-studio-flash-photography/

    Reply

Submit a Comment