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Taking professional-looking pictures for posters, catalogs or Web sites can be broken down to a few key elements: lighting equipment and technique, camera quality, subject matter, and an adventurous spirit. As with everything, the more you practice, the better you get. But thanks to improved and more affordable camera and lighting equipment, there has never been a better time to learn how to take professional photographs.
(Click on any image below for an enlarged view.) |
Topics Covered:
- How to light an object to naturally drop out the background
Equipment Used:
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LIGHTING
In product photography, lighting is the most important aspect of a great image. You may be shooting something very beautiful, but unless you take the time to light it well, its beauty may not be captured in the final image.
To illustrate, we decided to photograph this state-of-the-art mountain bike. Because of its size and reflective qualities, the bike presents some photographic challenges. |
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 Figure 1 |
We began by putting an X-Large SilverDome overhead with two Starlites in a 4Star FV connector, each with a 1,000 watt bulb in them. This gave us 2,000 watts of continuous light. |
 Figure 2 |
Then we placed two Large Silver Dome (Large Starlite Kits) with a 1000 watt Starlite in each, on each side of the set. |
 Figure 3 |
In order to make the background completely white so we could avoid hours of Photoshop work to cut around the spokes, we put two more Large SilverDomes (Large Starlite kits) each with a 1,000 watt bulb, in the back on the left and right, aimed at the white seamless paper background. |
The background and foreground have now gone white except for the shadows under the tires, and the bike is still at a good exposure. We can see detail in both the highly reflective metal surfaces and detail in the black tires.
NOTE: We did a quick two-minute Photoshop application to remove the bar on the seat that was holding up the bike. |
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 Figure 4 |
We repositioned the lights for photographing close-up features of the bike. |
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Click here to view a more detailed version of this lesson, complete with camera set-up information, on Web Photo School. |
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Related Lessons
Following are Web Photo School lessons related to this topic.
Equipment Used:
Recommended Links
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