Taking Photos of Products

[Steelbank]

We are in the middle of a redesign for our company website and need much design help.

We are looking to take high quality photos of our products to use, but are unaware of the process and what is needed to take photos you see on major sites.

Any suggestions on where to begin?

[rkhare]

you need a high mega pixel Digital SLR camera, lots of costly lighting for perfect picture. better to hire a professional product photographer and he will do it in few hours ;)

just my $0.02

[Arkette]

Product pack shots are highly specialised area of commerial photography. You need to shop around to find the right photographer and expect to travel unless your in a major city. Don't even think about trying to do this yourself, pro photographers train and practice for years on this kind of work and for very good reason.

[Don_Hoagie]

As previously mentioned, you definitely do not want to go the do-it-yourself route in this area if you're doing it from scratch. As long as you get the right photographer, it WILL cost you less time/money/aggravation to have it outsourced to a professional photographer.

[Demaestro]

Not sure but there could be some legallities when it comes to placing trademarked images of products onto your site. It probably won't matter as you are selling them, but I have come across some people who will go after anyone using their work on a website no matter the reason.

[adamnichols45]

If you want todo this your self - small items can be photographed in something called a "light tent" or "light box"

you will also need a good camera and about 3 good lights with boxes.

Maybe even an umbrella.

There is so much that goes into these photographs its not as easy as getting your digital camera out!

I recommend hiring a photographer it will save you money!

You will also have better results.

[Wlauzon]

Actually it is not usually all that complicated. Quite often you can get good pictures with nothing but a couple of reflectors adjusted for fill light to reduce contrast.

But, be careful about using some types of light - some fluorescents can make the colors come out really bad...

[luckychucky]

I must say: I hired photographers and spent a fortune on photos which were only adequate at best. My site sells hundreds of products.

Then I bought my own high-end digital SLR with a macro lens, a tripod and 2 professional photo lamps. I taped together a white foamcore light box, read a couple of free tutorials online, and started shooting.

You take a bunch of test shots, tweaking the variables in each and taking notes as you go along. Once you get the settings you like, it's easy as pie.

My shots are worlds better than the pro's (and he was a major guy in his field too, no small time slouch). I have saved a fortune and have total control. No more time and money spent waiting upon someone else's disinterested and merely good-enough labors.

I vehemently disagree with all the previous posts telling you to hire someone. The camera takes care of everything for you. All you need to do is tweak the lights. Easy.

One person you might want to spend money on, though, is a talented retouching artist who really knows her way around Photoshop.

[adamnichols45]

luckychucky

Any reason why the retouching artist would have to be female?

[rkhare]

Any reason why the retouching artist would have to be female?

I was coming to same thing, its interseting to find such gender bias ;)

My site sells hundreds of products.

so you can afford to buy a $ 750+ Digi SLR and also can spend another 500-700 on lighting. what about newbies to web with limited budget and unkown web-future? what do they do?

but still i would advice, that if you have slightest of knack for photography, give it a try yourself with whatsoever limited resources you have. Its not all that dificult as Wlauzon said.

[luckychucky]

Website artist's female because mine happens to be, in real life. Interesting that calling her a 'she' connotates gender bias. If I used 'he', would no alarm have been triggered? Reminds me of a verbal exchange I had in college long, long ago. I dated this girlfriend who volunteered at the 'Feminist Women's Health Center'. So I pompously declared I was going to open the 'Masculist Men's Health Center'. She looked me dead in the eye and said: "LuckyChucky, the whole world is the Masculist Men's Heath Center." Smart chick. You didn't want to get in an argument with that one, take it from me boyee.

If you can't afford a decent digiCam with a macro function (and they're getting really affordable lately) I'd assume you really couldn't afford to pay a 3rd party parasite. I'd assume DIY would probably be the only option for affordability at all.

It's sort of like rent-to-own furniture...if you're poor you think you've finally found a way to buy some furniture within your limited means. Then you end up paying twice as much.