The Ultimate DIY Guide to Beautiful Product Photography

[Reyed Mia (Apprentice, DIU)]

The Ultimate DIY Guide to Beautiful Product Photography

If there's one thing that's true when it comes to e commerce, it's that the perceived value of your products and the trustworthiness of your business is often judged by the quality of your web design. And a big part of having an attractive website these days also means having high-quality, beautiful product photography.

What You're Going to Need

Gear is at the heart of photography and can be really exciting, but typically it's the aspect that most people become confused about.

There's no necessity to spend a large portion of your budget on high-tech equipment, so keep an open mind and try not to overspend on gadgets that do the same job lighting your product as a $5 piece of card can do.  You can probably do this window light setup for $20 or less if you already own a camera.

You're only going to need a few things for this setup:

1. Camera



You don't need a crazy camera system. While shooting images with a Nikon D800 ($2796) sporting a 105mm f1.4 lens ($740) is awesome, it's also totally unnecessary.

Still, if you're feeling excited, and have the budget to stretch to a new camera system for this project, I suggest reading a post I wrote on quora which offers tips to help you pick out a good camera for product photography. If all you have is your smartphone, that's ok too; check out this helpful guide to smartphone product photography.

2. Tripod



Not to get too technical, but you're going to set your camera to a very small aperture so that you can have the most depth of field your camera is capable of. 

The width of the depth of field defines the area of sharp focus, and to get to that you need the largest f/stop number your camera can obtain. Shutter speed and f/stop are related, and since a larger f/stop number like f/8 lets in less light, you'll need to counter than by using a slower shutter speed to allow more light through. 

3. White Background



There are lots of options for a white background and if you're going to be shooting a lot, you may want to go to your local photography store and get a small white sweep.

If you're not in an area with a good photography store, you can always head over to your frame shop/art store and get a 32x40 sheet of their thinnest white Mat Board, which is what we're using in this example.
4. White Bounce Cards Made of Foamcore

While you're at the art store/frame shop, ask them if they have any extra scraps of white foamcore you can buy.  You only need a piece roughly the height of your product, and about 3x the width. Typically, a letter size will work.  We like to bend ours in half, like in the above example, so that it will stand up on its own.  Its purpose is to bounce light back onto the product. 

5. Table

A standard folding table works best, and a width that's between 24 and 27 inch wide is ideal.

6. Tape

Depending on the table you end up with, you can use tape or clamps to secure down your board so that it sweeps properly.

7. The Right Room

A room with windows next to a wall is perfect, and the bigger the window, the more light you'll get in.

https://www.shopify.com/blog/12206313-the-ultimate-diy-guide-to-beautiful-product-photography