Product photography

I get lots of requests for help from people who run website or small Ebay Internet businesses. They basically want to know what equipment they need to get to do better product photography. There is a lot of competition. The big firms are able to afford to pay the prices asked by the most successful photographers. Smaller outfits try to find ways of conserving capital by doing work for themselves..

What is meant by product photography? Consumer magazines are full of photos ranging from large objects like cars, boats, houses, interior furnishings, electronic gadgets, power tools, gardening equipment, and on a smaller scale, phones, watches, clothes and bottles of perfume. There are many other categories that I've missed form this list. Trying to find one photographer who is a master at photographing all of these categories would be very difficult indeed. Photographers tend to specialise in a narrow range of activities for which they become known.

If you want to investigate whether its feasible to do some of your own photographic work I think its best to spend some time thinking about some very practical problems. Do you have enough space to devote to photographic work? Obviously its hard to generalise here but the man that sold signage for directing drivers around public car parks will need a lot bigger space than a man who sold antique Japanese swords. Space can be an expensive commodity if its underused.

Another type of customer has done some holiday photography and thinks skills can be acquired merely by spending a lot on the proper equipment. Sometimes, this may be true. I have a pen that is better than anything Shakespeare ever had but I still can't write as well. Equipment isn't everything. Throwing money at a problem isn't always going to make the skills of image building that were hard won from long years of study and experience. It is also true that technology can change radically (from analogue to digital) rendering past experience worthless almost overnight. Often salesmen have recommended photographic gear that isn't really suitable at all for the job they want to do with it. On one occasion that equipment was very good the user had changed his product range to such a degree that the soft light of fluorescent tubes wasn't incisive enough for the new products he was photographing. These were simply sheets of rough textured paper. Light tents from Ebay or trade fairs are bought enthusiastially to solve all sorts ofphotographic problems.They work okay for some very small objects though they are far from the answer to all simple photographic lighting problems.

Interior of David Turner's Stokenchurch studio where one -to -one photography courses are run

A better way to proceed would be to strengthen you knowledge base prior to investing a lot of cash in new equipment. Spend a day finding and doing practical work in the studio on one of my photographic courses. You will normally be the only student and can find out exactly what you need to know.

Getting a white background

You might think that a roll of white background paper might easily lead to  pictures where an object appears to float in a completely white space. Its not as easy to achieve as you might think.

Firstly, the background needs to be very even. This is usually achieved by purchasing a roll of background paper or vinyl sheeting. Either material needs carefully supporting to avoid creases in the surface. It should be completely free from marks on the surface as well. Not too difficult to achieve with a small camera back and a sheet of drawing paper. However, anyone whose tried to photograph a motor bike in the same way will know that trying to get a roll of studio paper to unwind smoothly and lie perfectly flat on the floor is a lot trickier. The roll of paper is often warped by leaning it at an angle in storage.You also have tyre marks, and foot marks made getting the bike on to the background in the first place. Often large objects like bikes, boats and items of furniture are too long for the width of the background. You end up with a picture like this:-

The missing corner on the left has to be added in Photoshop etc. People think that a wide angle lens will solve the problem. Usually they introduce too much distortion.

You have to divide the studio or background into two different light zones. The lights falling on the object or person should be adjusted to give the correct exposure. The lights projected on the the background (you can just see the background light in the top of this picture) should be set slightly higher to overexpose the whiteness of the background. It is this overexposure that creates the bright, detail free, background white.

Exposure should be checked with a flash meter with the background light set slightly higher to overexpose the white paper a little (about one stop) None of this light should fall on the object or person which needs to be correctly exposed to show its characteristics. In a small studio this is often difficult to do as the light tends to bounce around the place in unexpected ways. Note that in the illustration there is a gap of six feet between the background and the biker. This is to stop cast shadows falling on the background.

On a high quality large print it would be necessary to remove a lot of marks made when the bike was wheeled into place on the floor.These can just be seen on the first picture.

Photographing white paper.

Photographing white paper.

I get a number of interesting requests for help with photo projects that grow out of the one day short courses that I run in my studio.(www.david-turner-photography.co.uk ) Many of my customers run small Internet businesses of one form or another. This problem came from a man who was well informed about the technical aspects of photography and had set up a website to sell high quality sheets of paper suitable for use by artists, craft workers and designers. I think he must have been using some form of template website that allowed only small samples to be shown in his website shop.
The problem was that a sheet of white paper, irrespective of its high quality and hand made attributes, doesn't look very exciting as a small square on a website. Grey paper, looks even worse.
Like most of my customers he had a selection of bits of lighting equipment acquired over the years that he was trying to use. Some of the equipment he had been sold wasn't very suitable for the job it had to do.They were fluorescent light bulbs of the coiled type.These can be successfully used on static subject matter where a very soft light is needed.
The problem was that a hard light was needed to bring out the texture on the art paper surface.Usually people have problems creating soft lighting. This one was the other way round. If there is a moral to this storey it should be that good information is best obtained before you buy equipment. It is equally true to say that situations change over time and one bit of gear cannot solve all of your problems.

Using studio flash. 1

Studio Flash Lighting 1.
General Information.

Over the last few years many amateur photographers have been tempted to buy studio lighting kits to use for mainly indoor work. A large number of brands have appeared from the far east to compete with the more established English, American, and Swiss brands. Anyone looking for a dealer could consult my friend Graham at his website www.gwdigitalandphoto.com for sales advice on what is needed. For beginners its often advantageous to buy a kit that includes some of the very necessary accessories like stands and reflectors etc. You will also need a flash meter.

 Lets assume that  you have acquired a set of studio lights. Most of the products on the market  have the following features:-

1   A modeling light that works in tandem with the flash tube. These can be adjusted from zero up to about 5 stops of light (depending on the particular unit)  The function of the modeling bulb is to mimic the effect of the flash when it occurs. Effectively, all of the light aiming is done with the modeling light and the exposure with the flash tube, so an important criteria in designing the unit is to make the spread and distribution of the two types of light as similar as possible. Cheap brands might not be very good in this respect.

2   There is the odd occasion when it would be desirable to shoot with flash and not have the modeling light switched on, so a switch is usually built in to facilitate this.

3  The strength or power of the flash is adjustable. This is indicated digitally on most modern lights. They are easier to see in a dim studio but no more efficient than the dial type adjusters they have superseded.
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4  When looking through a camera lens it is difficult to see if all of the flash units have worked so most have either an audible or visual signal, or both, to indicate that each particular unit has fired. On some units the modeling bulb dims after the flash has fired. I prefer the audible signals peeping around the studio in complex shots though it is largely a matter of what you are used to.

5  All of the lights have to be synchronized with the shutter to work at exactly the same moment to give correct exposure. This is achieved by one flash unit being in sync with the camera hot shoe or sync plug. Slave receptors built into the other units then cause them to fire as the camera shutter is opened. They work by UV light. There is also usually a jack plug socket for additional slaves to be used if necessary. Wireless connections are more reliable as the signal is less directional  than UV light. It is also possible to link units together with a wire. An old fashioned method that wasn't very reliable.

6.  Flash units are attached to lighting stands with a standard spigot usually supplied with the stand rather than the light unit.

7.  If they are to be transported in a car a substantial case is needed.

8.  Flash units are powered by capacitors that are quite powerful enough to give you a fatal electric shock. There should be a dump button to allow you to discharge the flash power down the earth cable.

9.   The cost of the flash tube is about half of the complete unit and it is very fragile. Retain the plastic or metal caps used in transit to protect your flash unit
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10.  Lights on tall stands are very unstable things. Toddlers,cats, and adults have all managed to knock mine over so I weight the base with gravel filled canvas bags. These are homemade.

In order to measure the light you will also need a special form of light meter called a flash meter.  Flash meters are able to measure sudden pulses of light and to trigger the flash units to enable the light emitted by sepate units at different strengths to be measured collectively. (See my other blog on Lighting Ratios.)

Soft box over object.

Lets start off with simple lighting of a small stationary object. Just use one light and some basic equipment such as a small soft box. As you can see from the photograph the light is suspended over a table nearly horizontally . ( It is tilted down at the front a little to cast light on the front elevation of the object.) A sheet of black card is attached to the back of the soft box. This has the effect of shading the light from the background. Depending on how deep the card is alters the amount of cast light bouncing off the background surface. The illustrations below show the card at is maximum size, then folded in half and then removed altogether.

In this picture the contrast is at its maximum rendering the background black at the top and then becoming white at the front.

Now the sheet hanging down from the soft box has been folded in half along its length allowing more light to spill on to the background sheet, reducing the contrast to mid gray.

The sheet has now been removed completely .

A simple sheet of paper can make a lot of difference in the lighting effect.
The big problem for most beginners with limited space and equipment is to support the soft box over the light table. This was done with a boom arm fixed to a substantial lighting stand. The stand was weighted at the base with gravel filled bags. A light weight stand might have tipped over if it was cantilevered too far.

Flash meters.
In order to measure the strength of the light its necessary to have a special type of light meter called a flash meter. Almost all of the flash meters on the market are also conventional light meters very similar to the ones built into most cameras. Built in camera light meters are unsuitable for measuring very short intense bursts of light emitted by the flash units. When used as a separate piece of equipment the flash meter can be pointed at the light source from position of the object or person being photographed.  It measures the light falling on the object or person.This is called incident rather than reflected light metering as the meter measures the light from the subject position.

Where a number of lights are being used a flash meter can be pointed at each light  in turn to evaluate its power in relation to the other flash units. In this particular case things are very simple as there is only one light.  The meter is placed close to the subject (the paper dog) and aimed at the camera lens. The invercone is extended to add light bouncing around the subject and a measurement made of the flash. The camera is set to this amount of exposure.
Flash meters vary a lot in their sophistication. I prefer one that is also a conventional light meter as well as this can be used in other types of photography to check camera light readings. Cameras tend to come and go but many professional photographers stay loyal to their trusted meter as it is an independent measure of exposure.

Lighting Ratios And Controlling Contrast In Flash Photography

Studio lighting using flash mono blocs requires that the photographer masters the use of a flash meter. While it might be possible to guess the strength of flash light and then check the results on your camera's LCD, even a simple flash meter will help reduce the amount of time you spend in working out the individual settings for, and exposures  from, each of your flash units, the ratio between their brightnesses, and the final camera settings that you use to make your picture.

The situation is made more complicated by the fact that all photographic prints and drawings have a tonal range that sets the limits to what can be done. You cannot make any part of a picture lighter than the bare white surface of the paper. Similarly it cannot get any darker than the deepest blacks that can be printed. Somehow you have to measure the light emitted by the flash units, add in any daylight or other ambient light, and work out settings that control the contrast of your picture, so that it doesn't exceed the tonal range possible in your print. Only a flashmeter can do this quickly and accurately.

The contrast of a photograph can be expressed as a lighting ratio, which is the difference between the amount of light falling on the the brightest parts of the subject compared to the amount of light in the darkest shadows.

Many flash meters come with a flat light measuring disk designed specifically for working out the lighting ratio, or, like the Sekonic L-358 flash meter I use in the studio, have a retractable dome, sometimes referred to as an invercone, which can be used to measure both the lighting ratio (while retracted) and the overall exposure (while extended). Other models may have a clip-on dome or disk, or even a sliding dome.

The way I set up lighting is to point the flat disk (or the retracted dome) towards the main light and measure the strength of that flash, then point the disk towards the secondary or fill-in lights one by one. Working round the lights one by one, I adjust each to the desired strength. When all of the lights are balanced, the invercone (extended dome ) is pointed at the camera from the subject's position and the cumulative exposure given by all of the flashes measured: the camera is then set to this reading.

Let's look at some examples of different lighting ratios, starting with very flat lighting. 

This is good for showing detail, texture and subtle colour effects. A good example would be the type of picture used by high street fashion stores to show examples of their clothing. The contrast ratio would be 1:2 or one stop difference between the brightness of the main flash light and the fill-in light or reflector. If you look at the shows cast by the figure on the floor you can clearly see that they have very little density. This type of lighting reveals all the surfaces darkened by subtle shading.

 Now lets increase the contrast to 1:3 ratio (1.5 stop difference between the main light and the fill-ins). This gives the subject a little more presence. It would be achieved by lowering the the power of the fill in lights or reflectors. Either turn the fill-ins down or move them slightly further away from the model.  The effect is to reduce their strength thus making the shadows a little darker. The whole picture becomes a little more dramatic and the figure/object appears to have more substance.

As the contrast gets greater the image grows in strength and the shadows change from being transparent to being superficially solid. The shadows start to play an important role in the picture itself. When you look at the original, rather than the small sized jpeg shown here, it's still possible to see detail in the dark shaded areas of the photo even with a contrast ratio of one to four (two stops) The nude life model is powerfully drawn with light and shade.

Now, let's look at 1:8 contrast ratio (3 stops difference between the main light and the fill-ins) which is about as far as you can go without rendering all of the shaded areas as solid black without any surface texture. Overdone, black areas can look very two dimensional.

Contrast ratios are closely connected with controlling light bouncing around the studio. This last picture was done on the same white background as all of the previous photos. There is just more control over where the light is allowed to fall. In this picture, no light gets on to the background at all, rendering the white surface as a near black.

I believe lighting is best learned by starting very simply with one light and a reflector, and then adding extra lights until the desired effect is achieved. Understanding flash measurement enables the photographer to achieve the desired amount of contrast to construct the  picture. This forms the basis of my teaching on the one day lighting courses I run.

(The model in these pictures is Rosemarie Orwin, art nude and photographic model, who I found to be a pleasure to work with. Highly recommended.)