Simple product shots

Learning goal

You will be able to explain why the photos of a product you want to sell look dark, cluttered and untrustworthy, and take an honest, clear product photo at home with a softened window, a reflector card and a plain background. You will build a sweep with no horizon line by curving a sheet of paper from the wall down onto the table; you will soften window light and fill the opposite side with a white card; you will expose a white background without letting it go gray; you will ensure color accuracy with a gray card; you will prepare an angle set that shows a product the buyer can't hold in their hand from the front, the back, the side, in detail and in use; you will tell the product's size with a scale reference; and you will grasp why showing its flaws without hiding them is part of the sale. At the end of the module, you will be ready to choose two genres and explore them with your own frames.

The question

You made a necklace by hand from silver wire and small blue stones, and you want to sell it online. In the evening you put it on the coffee table in the living room and photograph it under the ceiling lamp. On the screen the necklace is yellowish, the stones not blue but greenish, the silver gray and dull; behind it the end of the remote and a cup ring show. You show it to a few friends; one asks "it's nice, but what's its real color?", another "how big is it?"

How do I photograph something I want to sell at home? How do I show an object the buyer can't touch, weigh or hold up to the light, clearly and honestly enough to give them trust? In this lesson we will close the module with simple product photography and a small home studio set up in a corner of the living room.

Context

In a shop you hold a product in your hand, turn it, look at it against the light, feel its size and weight. Online, on the other hand, the buyer has only photos. Product photography is photography that gives the information someone who will buy a product needs, clearly, in accurate color and reliably. That is why product photography's first job isn't to impress but to inform: color, shape, texture, size and condition.

An expensive studio isn't needed. As in many of the genres you saw in this module, here too the most important tool is reading light: the window and white card from the food lesson, the single light source and plain background from the still-life lesson, are the foundation of product photography too. The difference is that here the goal isn't a feeling, but trust.

Simple explanation

How is a home studio set up?

A sweep is a background that curves down from the wall onto the table, with no corner and no horizon line. Taping a large white sheet of paper or a thin card to the wall and bringing it down onto the table in a soft curve erases the line behind the product where the wall meets the table; the product looks as if it stands in empty space. The paper shouldn't be creased or stained, because on a white background every mark stands out.

Setting up the table beside a window gives the easiest light source. Direct sun creates hard shadows and bright hot spots; a cloudy day, a north-facing window, or a thin sheer curtain stretched over the window softens the light. A white card held upright on the side of the product away from the window opens the shadows and balances the product's two sides. Putting the camera on a tripod makes it easier to photograph different angles of the same product in the same light, and to keep the whole product sharp with a narrow aperture.

How are color and exposure kept right?

Color accuracy is the color in the photo being as close as possible to the product's real color, and it is one of the most important pieces of information in product photography; a photo that shows a blue stone as green misleads the buyer. Not mixing the ceiling lamp with the window light, working with only one kind of light, is the first step. Before starting the shoot, putting a gray card beside the product, taking a frame and setting the white balance from that card keeps the colors right.

A white background, on the other hand, misleads the camera's metering. The camera tries to pull the white that fills most of the frame toward middle gray; the background turns gray and the product looks dark. Setting exposure compensation to plus, often by about one stop, keeps the background white and the product at the right brightness; but if you open it too much, the edges of the silver or of a white product merge with the background and disappear. Looking at the histogram and at the enlarged product on the screen shows the narrow path between the two dangers.

Why do the angle set and honesty matter?

An angle set is the series of photos taken so the buyer can get to know the product from every side: from the front, the back, the side, a close-up detail, and the product in use. A scale reference, on the other hand, is an object of commonly known size, or a hand, placed beside the product to tell its size; for a necklace a neck or a palm, for a small box a pen. You need to write the size in words too, but seeing it in a frame keeps the buyer from forming a wrong expectation.

Honesty is the ethics of product photography. Erasing a scratch, a color difference or a flaw in editing may make the sale easier in the short term, but in the long term it leads to returns and lost trust. Showing the flaw in a close frame tells the buyer what they will get. With products that touch the skin, like jewelry, showing the product on different skin tones also shows the buyer how it will look on their own skin: silver stands out like a bright line on dark skin, while on light skin it rests with a softer glow; setting the white balance from a gray card keeps the color of both the product and every skin right.

Visual evidence

The next afternoon, on a cloudy day, you pull the table beside the living room's north-facing window. You tape a large white sheet of paper to the wall and curve it down onto the table, and stand a white card on the side away from the window. You turn off the ceiling lamp, put the camera on the tripod, set the aperture to f/8 and the ISO to 100, and take the first frame at a fifteenth of a second; the background has gone gray. You set compensation one stop to plus: the background is white, the silver bright, the stones truly blue. You set the white balance with the gray card, and enlarge the screen to check the edges of the stones.

Then you shoot the angle set: the necklace from the front, from the back, a close detail of its clasp, and a small chip on the edge of one stone. Finally you ask two friends, one dark-skinned and one light-skinned and freckled, to wear the necklace; you photograph them in the same window light and with the same white balance. On the dark skin the silver wire stands out like a bright line and the blue stones are deep; on the light skin the wire rests with a softer glow and the stones look lighter among the freckles. You add six frames to the listing; when one buyer asks about the chip, you realize you have already added the frame that shows it.

Common mistakes

Summary

Product photography gives the information the buyer needs about a product they can't touch, clearly, in accurate color and reliably; window light, a white card on the opposite side and a white background curving from the wall onto the table set up a studio at home that is enough for this. Working with one kind of light and setting the white balance from a gray card keeps color accuracy, and to keep a white background from going gray you need to set compensation to plus; an angle set shot from the front, back, side, in detail and in use, along with a scale reference, introduces the product. Not hiding flaws, and showing products that touch the skin on different skin tones in their accurate colors, is the foundation of the sale and of trust.

Mini assignment

The first four steps of this assignment are for a simple product photo; the last step is the module project.

1. Choose a small product at home that you could sell or that you love; build a sweep with white paper beside a window.
2. Turn off the ceiling lamp, put a white card on the side away from the window, and set the white balance with a gray card.
3. With compensation, find the exposure where the white background stays white and the product's edges stay crisp.
4. Take one frame each of the product from the front, the back, the side, a detail and in use; have a scale reference in one of them.
5. Module project: choose the two genres from this module that feel closest to you, and take ten frames of each; at the start of each series, write in one sentence what you look for in that genre.

Check yourself

• Is the color of the product in the photo close to the color of the real product you hold beside the window?
• Do the frames in the angle set answer the questions a buyer could ask without seeing the product?
• If you showed the product on a person, do the colors of the product and the skin stand right with the same white balance?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is product photography's first job?

• A) Showing the product brighter than it is
• B) Giving the buyer clear, color-accurate and reliable information
• C) Decorating the background
• D) Showing the product as small as possible

2. In a product photo in front of a white background, the background turns gray. What should you do?

• A) Set exposure compensation to plus and check the product's edges
• B) Set compensation to minus
• C) Turn on the ceiling lamp too
• D) Replacing the background with a dark cloth is a must

3. Which is the most reliable way to ensure color accuracy?

• A) Livening up the colors by eye in editing
• B) Using the ceiling lamp and window light together
• C) Working with one kind of light and setting the white balance from a gray card
• D) Always trusting automatic white balance

4. There is a small chip on a stone of the silver necklace you will sell. What should you do?

• A) Erase it in editing
• B) Shoot from an angle where the chip doesn't show
• C) Share only one frame
• D) Show the chip clearly in a close frame

Answers

1. B — The buyer has only the photos; their job is to inform.
2. A — Metering pulls white toward gray; plus compensation keeps the background white, and checking the edges protects the product.
3. C — One kind of light and a gray card keep the color close to reality.
4. D — Showing the flaw prevents returns and protects trust.

Summary card

• Product photography informs: color, shape, texture, size, condition.
• Home studio: soft window light, a white card opposite, a curved white background.
• One kind of light, white balance from a gray card; plus compensation on a white background.
• An angle set and a scale reference.
• Show the flaw; photograph products that touch the skin on different skin tones in accurate color.

Bridge to the next lesson

If you want to turn product shoots into work, the white background, tabletop studio, shiny products and catalog lessons of Track R9 · Product and Food (Commercial), which you met in the food lesson, are waiting for you. The introduction to genres ends here; the twenty frames from the module project and the necklace's six frames are now on your computer, waiting to be edited. But with which program? On the internet everyone recommends a different program, some paid, some free. Which program should I use? The next lesson opens the editing module and talks about how, even as programs change, the logic of editing stays the same.