Camera for product pictures

[Paul Babiak]

Hi
I'm on a hunt for a camera for product photography. I don't know much about professional photography.
Any suggestions?

 

[WebshopMechanic]

Hi Paul,

Anything from the Canon EOS range would be find, although you probably need to focus more on the studio set-up and lighting. Lighting is everything in my experience and so is getting the right white balance (although I'm not a photographer by any means).

You can buy table-top studios and get quite good results or invest in something more substantial if you're going to be shooting a lot of stuff.

Matt

 

[UrbanRetail]

I use a Nikon Coolpix and a £15 lightbox from Amazon. Pictures look professional enough.

 

[AllUpHere]

With photography it's all in the skill. If you don't know anything about photography you'll struggle to take good pics if you spend 10 grand on kit. A decent photographer ,however, can take decent shots with a 200 pound camera and a bit of imagination.

In short, upgrade your skills, not your camera.

 

[Tin]

You don't need an expensive camera to do this job well. Pick up a digital camera second hand on Ebay that has an Auto Exposure mode, pick up a light tent on Amazon for less than £20 ( a light tent is handy for taking photos of shiny or highly reflective products) but if your products aren't shiny or reflective then dispense with the light tent and go to an art supplies shop where you can pick up an A1 sized flexible card, place the card flat on a table, place the product on the card and towards the front of the card, then bend the rest of the card upwards so that the card provides a foreground and background for the product - assuming of course that your product is small enough to fit on an A1 card?

Here's a bunch of video's on the topic of 'doing product photography on the cheap' that might be helpful.

Ray

 

[Chris34]

I disagree with some of the comments above. The cheap light tents will not give you good colour representation. The most important thing is the lights you use. You need daylight bulbs, these cannot be had for less than £20. You are probably looking at £100+ on Ebay for the daylight bulbs and lamps and some of the deals include the larger tents that you also need.

The camera is also an important part. You need full manual control to be sure to get the shots you need. Mine is a canon bridge camera and cost about £120 a few years ago and does the job perfectly.

The cheap light tents and cameras might look fine if all you are photographing is mainly black electronic products, however as soon as you start to photograph different shades of pinks and duck egg blues, that's when you realise they are not up to the job.

The light tents are not as readily available as they were a few years ago, I don't know why but something like this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/BRESSER-Mm...h-Tent/1053492792?iid=162158385765&opts=opick

and my camera is this

https://www.canon.co.uk/for_home/product_finder/cameras/digital_camera/powershot/powershot_sx510_hs/

Buy right, buy once,

Chris.

 

[pelparc]

What are you taking photos of? If you want the normal pure white background you need full manual control with the ability to set the white balance. As well as the lighting and depending upon what your photographing you might what to look at lens's. Without knowing what you are taking and want to achieve its hard to make any recommendations, you might want to take photos of a car or a tiny diamond it can make a big difference. You will also need editing software like Photoshop or free ones such as Gimp.
There are loads of online videos showing you what to do, but it takes time playing with different setups to get the best results. However once you have got it all setup correctly subsequent photos can be taken without any effort, just keep playing until your happy.

 

[antropy]

Probably read some good books on photography and then get an entry-level digital SLR and some lights etc.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

OK, you have your camera and lights. What about a monitor to view the images on?

http://www.jigsaw24.com/eizo-27-inc...lour-critical---coloredge/-/fcp-product/35922

 

[antropy]

OK, you have your camera and lights. What about a monitor to view the images on?

http://www.jigsaw24.com/eizo-27-inc...lour-critical---coloredge/-/fcp-product/35922

I think it would be impossible to produce good results without this to be honest #toptip

 

[AllUpHere]

OK, you have your camera and lights. What about a monitor to view the images on?

http://www.jigsaw24.com/eizo-27-inc...lour-critical---coloredge/-/fcp-product/35922

Forgive my ignorance (I know next to nothing about photography), but what's the advantage of checking your work on a calibrated monitor when your customers will prob be viewing your product pics on your website on a phone or cheap laptop?

 

[antropy]

I'm assuming atmosbob was joking

 

[AllUpHere]

I'm assuming atmosbob was joking

Yes, I get that, but the very fact that calibrated monitors exist means someone thinks it's necessary.

 

[antropy]

I guess it's more for print designers where there is a lot more control over the inks used in the printing process. But I think it's still useful - you can't think "ah well most people have crap monitors so we won't bother". What about the people with high end stuff? It's better to make it higher quality than it needs to be than vice versa.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

I'm assuming atmosbob was joking

Not at all. When digital capture was quite new an international group of photo organisations got together to produce a set of guidelines. You can read it here. http://www.updig.org/pdfs/updig_photographers_guidelines_v40.pdf

The reason for having a calibrated monitor is that otherwise you will not know whether your lights, camera, capture software are producing the colours you want.

 

[paulyh]

It all depends on what you are taking photos of. I have to photograph jewellery and after spending a lot on kit including light boxes and the best solution was my iphone, a £20 light tent from ebay and some different backgrounds.
I found perfect white and black backgrounds really hard to achieve, so if that is what you are hoping to achieve it might be less stressful and possibly cheaper (time spent learning, taking the pictures and editing etc) to get a professional to do it.