Recently we had several clients coming after having bad experiences with cheap competitor “professionals”, on the local Montreal commercial photography scene. Unlike people photography which has a preponderant social aspect, achieving decent product or food photography require a lot of technical skills and the right equipment. We see a lot of examples were technical flaws are just ignored because the model is good looking, however, in product photography, a cheap, in-hand camera just won’t cut it. To get the right results, shooting objects or still life, the image has to be “built”. The angle, depth of field and textures are critical in this field. I totally understand the need of staying in the budget. Nevertheless, keep in mind, if one has to reshoot entire sessions the financial burden can be even greater. Also, settling with poor quality images, just because they are “good enough”(or bad enough), can be very detrimental in long run for a business.
Bellow is an real life example of how we set-up for a simple, isolated on white, product shot:
And the final result with minor postproduction processing:
I’ve chosen a white product on white background as sample because a lot of nowadays “pro” photographers seem to have issues in succeeding the isolation of objects with the same color as the background, fact that triggers a lot of retouching after the shooting session.
Gear used:
Phase One IQ140 + Phase One 645DF + Mamiya 120mm macro
Profoto D1 with various Profoto difusers