Product photography on white background

[LordNobatko]

Hi guys, I have a couple of questions regarding product photography. 

 

We will use the photos mainly for eCommerce and Instagram. The products are accessories for MotoGP bikes, and the majority of them is made from aluminium usually with black anodized finish (mildly reflective). I need some advice on the setup of the lights, eventually which ones to buy.

 

Our current setup includes:

Canon EOS 70D + Sigma 30mm 1:1.4 DC

photo table: https://www.phototools.cz/zbozi/fotograficky-stul-100x200-cm-masivni/

two generic cheap softboxes

 

We are looking forward to upgrading. The lights are super bad, to the point of the pictures being grainy. We want something worth its price, something at the performance/price sweet spot. The total budget for upgrades is around 2000USD

 

I would also appreciate any links for photoshop tutorials on how to edit the photos, how to remove the background altogether. I have searched skillshare and Lynda, I found some tutorials, but none of them went deep enough.

 

I include two pictures taken with our current setup. They are directly exported to JPG from RAW as it would not fit the attachments section in the .CR2 format

 

 

[GDRRiley]

I'd help the background by making it a upwards curving white plastic sheet. that will give you that forever white background
as for lights SL150II should do well with some larger softboxes

[AbydosOne]

On 10/21/2020 at 3:27 AM, LordNobatko said:

The lights are super bad, to the point of the pictures being grainy.

Out out curiosity, what are the settings you're shooting at? (I'd check myself but the backend removes the EXIF info on uploaded pics)

 

If you're on a tripod, you should be able to drop your ISO as low as it will go and let the camera take as long of an exposure as it needs. That should remove some/all of the grain.

[LordNobatko]

@AbydosOne Pics were shot with theese settings, I think we will be able to push the ISO lower as the pictures are shot on tripod

[For Science!]

On 10/22/2020 at 6:22 PM, LordNobatko said:

@AbydosOne Pics were shot with theese settings, I think we will be able to push the ISO lower as the pictures are shot on tripod

 

Honestly, I don't think you're too far off. Just bring up the exposure a little bit in post to blow out the white background and crop in to get rid of the distractions. A use of a parametric mask could help completely changing the background, but its also good to leave some shadows. Obviously a longer exposure and reducing the ISO will help with the grain.

 

I just used Darktable to tweak the jpeg.

 

[Distinctly Average]

I would suggest getting a popup light tent. That way you can light it from all sides and get a nice and soft lighting. They can be had at a very low cost from the bay of fleas

[LordNobatko]

On 11/4/2020 at 6:17 PM, Distinctly Average said:

I would suggest getting a popup light tent. That way you can light it from all sides and get a nice and soft lighting. They can be had at a very low cost from the bay of fleas

That was our previous setup, it did not work very well, at that time we only had two mediocre softboxes, that probably did not help... Anyway the money is not the biggest issue, we are more than happy to invest in equipment that will serve well.

[LordNobatko]

@For Science!Well thanks for the insight, I will definitely have to look into the parametric masks.

[Distinctly Average]

Quote

1 minute ago, LordNobatko said:

@For Science!Well thanks for the insight, I will definitely have to look into the parametric masks.

 

I always used them with big soft boxes, up to four of them depending on the shot. I also made up some panels using 1/4 stop diffusion sheets (I bought a20m roll really cheap.). Again, it is not expensive and doesn’t need to be. The lights I used to use cost me almost nothing when I did product work years ago. In most cases it was jewellery or toys that I would shoot, as well as watches and the like for a now bankrupt catalogue shop. Would they have looked better with thousands of pounds worth of pro lights? Nope, but it does make things easier to work with. I had to for instance adjust them one by one manually. These days you can control many groups from behind your camera as I am sure you know. These lights do tend to be expensive eating up any budget for modifiers.
 

It might be worth watching some of the videos from Karl Taylor for some ideas on lighting. While he does miss a lot of the detail, probably as he would rather people sign up for his paid courses, you can learn a lot from just looking at the setups. 

[Matttis]

From my experience the light needs to be as diffuse as possible and it basically needs to come from the sides and from the top.

These are some old examples I took in 2014 when I wanted to try it out for shits and giggles

 

Set up an infinity curve and get as many flashes as possible with soft boxes. Otherwise you can set up a big softbox around the infinity curve and then try to get as much light in that as possible.

[s_k]

As much as I like a prime, I'd go for a zoom lens here. With the size of your subjects being different it's so useful to be able to zoom in and take a step back to change the background/subject ratio.
The Tamron 17-55 2.8 is a really nice affordable lens for the 70D