Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Twice a month we revisit some of our reader favorite posts from throughout the history of Phototuts+. This tutorial was first published in October, 2009.
This tutorial will outline how to shoot a basic product shot. The emphasis will be on background, lighting, and the positioning of the product itself. The subject chosen to work with is simple – a shoe – it offers a great example to highlight the basics of lighting and shooting an isolated product photo.
Step 1: Gather Your Equipment
Table
Anything will work. You can use two sawhorses and a damaged door or your kitchen table. Most product shots are outlined in Photoshop (called “white seamless” shots) and the background is eliminated anyway (as you’ll see in some of the photos below, It doesn’t matter what is in the surrounding area!)
White Background
I’m going to use a large 4′ x 8′ foam board for my background. You can make anything work; a bed sheet, picture frame matting, two white cards, or anything flexible.
Stands
I am going to use four Century stands and one background stand. One Century stand has an extension arm on it and the background stand has an extension arm on it. Whatever stands you have should be fine.
Flashes
Any flash system with three heads will do. I am using Alien Bees (800 and 1600 heads).
Tripod
Make sure your tripod is sturdy enough to hold the camera at any level or angle. Don’t skimp here. I don’t use a level for most product shots so don’t worry if your tripod doesn’t have one.
Clamps
You will need at least 5 strong clamps with protective rubber covers. If all you have are the cheap plastic ones, you should wrap the ends with duct tape so they grip better.
Lens
The lens you use really depends on how big your product is and how close/far away you are to it. For this, I am using a 24-85 and will be shooting at f11 – approximately 4 feet from the shoe.
Camera
I shoot with a Nikon D-300. I take it off of the ‘auto’ setting and use ‘manual’ only. My focus is set to AF/AE button (not the shutter release button). This keeps the camera from re-focusing each time it takes a photo. Since each camera is different, I encourage you to read the section in your manual titled “Auto-Focus”. My aperture is set to f11, the shutter speed is 125th/sec and ISO is set to 200. I have my camera set to a custom white balance, but since that is a matter of preference, you can set it to “auto white balance” or a “flash white balance”…
The more stable you build your set and all that goes with it, the fewer problems you will have doing any shot.
Step 2: Preparing the Background
Get the background stand with the extension arm and position it on the rear side of your table. Swing the extension arm into a 90 degree angle and tighten so that the arm can support the background.
I took my 4′ X 8′ card, folded it in half from top to bottom (making a 4′ X 4′ surface – but you can use 2 cards or fabric). I now take one section of the card and lay it flat on the table and clamp securely to the table (this is your horizontal surface).
Unfold the card so that it now becomes your background and clamp it to the extension arm on the stand we positioned behind the table.
The horizontal surface and the background need to be completely flat and smooth with no wrinkles or creases so that the lighting will cast evenly. If you have sand bags, place those on the feet of the stand to prevent the stand from moving.
Step 3: Positioning the Product
Get one Century stand and an extension arm. Position the extension into a 90 degree angle and tighten. Place the stand left or right of the table so the extension arm is over the center of the background.
To hang the shoe, use a piece of fishing string (cut long enough so that it is twice as long as the distance from the table top to a height of one foot above the arm), and some duct tape.
Then get a piece of wire (I used a coat hanger and cut it to the same width as the inside of the shoe)
Next, find the center of your string and wrap a small piece of duct tape around it.
Tie the string into a knot around the tape so the tape will not slip out of place on the string.
Now tape the wire to the knot of tape on the string in the center so that the wire and the string are coming out both sides of the duck tape equally.
This is the finished ‘rig’ that will suspend the shoe.
Get the shoe and clean it well. Securely fasten the rig into the bottom heel of the shoe so that the ends of the rig have a good grip on the inside walls of the shoe.
Gather the strings coming off the rig and lift the heel of the shoe off the table to test if the rig has a good grip. It is important that it is secure, so do whatever it takes (bend the rig, push it around to get it in place).
Make sure the shoe looks good by using paper to fill the toe and keep the tongue up and in place. Tuck the shoe strings into the shoe to give it a clean look.
Now place it on the table just below the extension arm.
Take one end of the string and wrap it over the extension arm which will pull the heel of the shoe off the table to the desired height. I suspend it about 3 inches off of the table to help light the bottom of the shoe – important when shooting a product of any type.
Now while holding the string to the arm, wrap the string 3 or 4 times around the arm and clamp it securely to the extension arm.
Now that the shoe is hanging unevenly, get the other end of the string and wrap it over the arm so that the heel of the shoe is level, Now clamp the second string to the extension arm and place sand bags on that stand.
Step 4: Lighting the Shot
Basic product shots require 3 lights (top/overhead light, and front/side umbrellas).
The Top Light
Take one head and mount it on a boom arm to the Century stand. To diffuse the light, I am using two sheets of wax paper cut long enough so that I can tape them loosely over the reflector (I do this rather than use a soft box because I only have an 8-foot ceiling here).
Position the light over the top of the shoe and place a sand bag on the stand.
To set your top light exposure, place the light meter over the shoe, test your flash and keep adjusting until the meter reads f11. Once it is set, turn the top light off.
The Umbrellas
Get two century stands and dress each of them with a head, reflector and umbrella. Place the umbrella lights at a 45-degree angle to the shoe and towards the front of the table approximately 3-5 feet from the shoe.
Turn power on to both of the umbrellas. Again, place the meter over the shoe and adjust the power so that both heads are equal and the combined exposure is around f/11. As you can see, mine is at f/8.9 but that is close enough… the important thing is that both lights are equal!
Now turn on all of your lights.
If you don’t have a light meter, take test shots with your camera and even visually through a trial-and-error process.
Step 5: Setting the Camera
Take your camera, set your preferred white balance, set the aperture to f/11 and the shutter speed to 1/125, mount it on the tripod and place it approximately 3-5 feet from the table directly in front of the shoe. I adjusted the tripod so the camera sits just above the table height.
Fill the frame with the shoe, focus, then plug in your sync and take the photo.
Step 6: The Final Product
The final photo needs to have the background stripped to white. I do this in Photoshop with the selection tool, but I am not going into detail in this tutorial on how to do that. Here is the final shot:
The shot will always need fine tuning in some way or another:
- If one head appears to be putting out more power than the other, adjust as necessary (you’ll know if there are shadows or one side of the shoe is darker than the other). Also make sure the umbrellas are set at the same distance.
- If the top of the shoe is too bright, adjust that power down.
- If you are over exposed check to be sure the ISO on the camera is the same as what was measured on the light meter.
- If the color seems to be off, you may need to adjust your white balance.
Now that you’ve put the setup together, you can have fun, experiment, and try different products. Turn on/off and move around the different lights to see what exactly each light is doing and this will give you a basic idea of how the outcome can be adjusted.
I covered flat lighting first since this is what most e-commerce sites are using. Feel free to experiment – remember that knowledge is king and practice makes perfect, even if it is a little boring!
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By Flint Hannah
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Sweet !
In place of the umbrellas, could we use something more soft (softer ?) like kinoflo or something ? (better price if you rent i think, in france at least).
Tks !
R.
I don’t have a lot of experience working with hot lights but I don’t see why not.
Flint
good one. the setup needs some changes based on the product; for example what is going to happen if you shoot a shiny metal coverd object? that may be another great addition
Thanks
This set would not work at all if you shoot a shiny metal covered object like a golf club.
Flint
How would you shoot such a set-up, e.g for Jewellery?
You have to use photographic tent, when shooting shiny things.
I have never used a tent with good results, could work for what your shooting I don’t know?
Flint
That is not simple. I can’t say how to shoot a jewelry shot in this reply.
I will write a tutorial on “shinny things”
Flint
That would be brilliant, I’m looking forward to reading it!
Hi Flint, I dont suppose you have managed to find time for this have you?
I’m stupped at how to photograph shiny objects well, nothing i’ve tried works very well.
Shiny Things can be photographed with dark (I use black) backgrounds. You Can use the rest of the tools used in this tut… At least they worked for me along with a Flash.
With jewels:
Black paper background
Two white spotlights
Two hot spotlights and
a difused white light over the product
Your camera in macro settings…
Danilo
Sweet and precise and complete. Could be interesting to develop a low tech and low budget version of this tut.
Thanks
Low tech and low budget, How would that sound??
Instead of a clamp we will use the hubabuba………
People are going to make fun of what and how this tutorial is now. I might as well have thrown myself in front of a bus, I’m not jumping from there.
Flint
If you went to so much trouble metering the light during setup, then why is the trial and error of tweaking the lights after your first shot necessary? Or put another way, if you’re almost certainly going to need to go through a trial and error process with the lights, why bother being so precise at the beginning? Sounds like a lot of wasted time to me. Then again, it sounds like exactly the process I went through when I hung curtains in my office.
I meter lights to give me a place to start so I don’t have to work to find the lights power setting equal to the aperture setting I would like to use. To put it another way, I clean the shoe with a cloth knowing that I will need to use photoshop for spot retouching. Am I saving or wasting my time?
How do your curtains look?
Flint
I enjoyed this tut. Straight forward and interesting. Lets have more of this type to help us newbees.
Thank You
Flint
I was just skimming over the article and would like to point out that you metered f/8 and 9/10ths not f/8.9.
You should also take a combined meter reading with all of the lights on.
I’m also surprised you didn’t just use your beautiful white ceiling to bounce and diffuse your overhead light or at least suggest it. I would imagine 90% people have white ceilings.
Otherwise props for the article.
Your right, I metered f/8 and 9/10ths not f/8.9. Sorry about that!
The over all light reading might work in this setup, it will have you under exposing the product I think.
Not setting your light or light banks independent of one and other is bad lighting practice that will cause you problems in the future.
I’m happy you like my ceiling but I don’t think it is white it just looks white next to the walls and even if it is white as the light bounced off the walls to the product it would change color.
The two comments you have posted are bad lighting practices but 90% of the readers will agree that my writing, spelling and grammar sucks.
Flint
Hey check out my site its still young so dont run off! but i need to see that people are actually going there other wise im shutting it down.
hazystudio.com
Are you… advertising your website… on somebody else’s website? o__O
That’s pretty lame, man.
LOL go to the website! its a complete clones site of the TUT sites haha
This is very handy and informative, thank you
Thanks
Flint
You can not shoot Dr.Martens wrong.
But this one is really good one. Thanks for way of doing it.
Very nice site! is it yours too
This is great. Very informative.
I’m awaiting your tutorial on shiny objects.
Cheers!
thanks for the tips. found your tutorial very informative and detailed. thanks!
great idea.
look this photo. work in photoshop.
http://eminov.info/wp-content/uploads/pcr-ishci.jpg
Thanks for the tutorial and I think I should change from light tent to this one. Bad thing about light tent is too cozy inside and do not have much room to play with your objects.
Hi Flint, I have a question to ask. Currently I am using 2 day light bulb aiming at the product at 45 degree outside the light tent. I have tried using light meter and adjust using the meter on my camera. The results always over-exposed no matter how I adjust my lighting. Now I am using grey card and it didn’t really help on the background. It’s still kind of greyish.
I tried placing one lightbulb at top like the one you did in this tutorial. However, my product looks too bright with hard shadow around it. (because it’s reflective product)
I still can’t manage to find anyway to shoot a reflective product. Even with light tent, you still able to see a line of black on the product (that’s where the light tent zip is)
Have a look at this photo:
http://bit.ly/cPG5lk
How can we take such a stunning product photo?
Thanks
Excellent article and a really good introduction for people wanting to move out of restrictive and cumbersome light tents. Gonna re-read this to make sure i have it all covered. Thanks!
A very precise and detailed tutorial, I normally use a light tent but I think I will give this set up a try.
Thanks
thanks for the tips. found your tutorial very informative and detailed. thanks!
not a bad tutorial but not the greatest,a little too much effort,why not just buy a roll of colorama background paper and tape it half way up a wall,one continuous sheet and no join on a properly exposed background.calumet do a good shooting table allowing defused light from behind and underneath.Why brollies?two 60cmx60cm softboxes at 45 degree angle to left and right,no overhead light.is all thats needed.
light tents are for amatuers,rarely pro’s use them.tip:if shooting watches,remove the glass bezel,this is what leading pros do
Just for clarification, “white seamless” is in reference to using white seamless paper as a background, it has nothing to do with cutting the product out in Photoshop.
Excellent set up. The product can also be photographed using just one soft box hung above with reflectors (white card/foil) placed around the product to control the overall effect. Placement of reflectors dictate highlights and shadows.