Sunday, August 15, 2010

Third Product photography attempt

My third attempt at Product photography was a step backward. I tried shooting glass. It was not as good as I would have liked. The glass reflects light so I have to watch out for glare. I worked by using lights on the sides that shone pointing slightly forward which helped a lot. I still have a lot to learn and will be putting some strong effort into figuring this out.

I am not sure how I feel about this image. I think the glass is shown off quite well but my background is far to dark. I used the same lights as with my second attempt but did not get the same brightness. The light position may have affected this since I had the lights pointed at the background in the second attempt and at the foreground here.


Both of these images still have the lighting problem. I had read a lot of product photography is best done as a 45 degree angle. In the case of these candles I found a nearly level angle was best. I realized after working on these photos for a few minutes though that since I was shooting with a short lens up close I managed to get my own reflection on them. I was so worried about avoiding light that I didn't pay attention to myself. This will be corrected in the next shoot. The lights did not leave any overly strong glares though. I polarizing filter would probably knock out the rest but I do not have one for this camera.

This image had the same problems as the image before. I can barely see my own reflection in the glass and it make me unhappy with it.

A few problems I have solutions to attempt to correct. I am going to try using a third light that will be aim above the candle at the background to light the background up. My other option is Photoshop. I experimented with Photoshop a little bit but my skill with Photoshop is not as good as it should be and it took a lot of time to do and I need to keep working on it. Not a reasonable option. The largest problem was that using the magic wand to select the background is the fastest option to begin with. Because of the glass, the wand selected half the product as well making it mostly useless. It is still possible to do but to time consuming for my skill level. Hopefully when the background is light up I will be able to select it better if necessary. Setting a black object behind the product, but out of sight of the camera might reflect the black to the edges and give me a better border. Only time will tell.

I never question what to do, it tells me what to do.  The photographs make themselves with my help.  ~Ruth Bernhard 

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