Product Photography Lighting

ThatCanonGuy

I'm trying to get a good product photography setup. I want to be able to take photos of lenses and stuff that size. I made a DIY lightbox - it's a little over 12x12x12, made out of a cardboard box, with the top and side walls cut out and replaced with white tissue paper. Added a 2'x4' or so piece of flexible poster board for the bottom and back.

I have an incandescent light bulb on a clamp, on each side of this box. This gives a very warm light, but with the correct WB setting it can be good. But this lights up the sides of the subject, and the front (facing camera) doesn't get as much light. Exposing for the front of the subject means the sides (they have more light) start to blend into the white background.

Another thing I've tried, instead of using the lightbulbs, is to bounce the 430EX flash off the white ceiling. It then goes through the white tissue paper to the lens. This doesn't light the subject very well.

I think I need the lightbulbs to be nearer to my camera, facing the front of the subject... but I can only move them as far as the tissue paper goes, and that's not very far.

Do I need a bigger lightbox? Different lights? Should I try off camera flash? What setup do you guys use?

I'd like to get something like the product images here: http://the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-II-DSLR-Digital-Camera-Review.aspx I realize that's a bit high to aim LOL, but could I get something close to that?

ThatCanonGuy

Here's the lightbox. It's been used quite a bit

ziggy53

I prefer a product table with light tents for the product itself. I built a simple product table using pvc pipe and a clear plexiglass/acrylic top. Then I use a number of different tenting methods, depending on the product/subject itself.

The lights themselves can be anything at hand, but if they are all the same white balance it's easier to handle in post. I prefer to double diffuse, but the light tent itself can be, and should be, a diffusion layer. By light tent I mean anything that works, including cylinders made of drafting vellum or drafting plastic, a thin white sheet literally "tented" above the product, etc.

I use a white "sweep" under the product table, and it's important to light that separately. If the other lights are daylight balanced flash I typically use daylight compact fluorescent for the sweep. (Absolute color accuracy is rarely a problem for the sweep.) You want to light the sweep so that it's just brighter than anything else in the scene, to make it easier to drop out the sweep in the background.

Now just position the product lighting and light tent as needed. You may also need black "flags" to help control spill from the flashes and also for those areas that need light subtraction on the subject.

Basically I use a DIY product table similar to, but smaller than, this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/109417.jpg

Mine is somewhat different and I just use a flat piece of plexi, but that image gives the idea.

Google for images of "product lighting diagram".

Here is a wiki for a description of a lighting "flag", but you can Google for more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_(lighting)

Qarik

pull back the side lights and and crank down the shutter speed to balance the light more..maybe put a piece of foam core flat in front of the box as well.

Art Scott

similar to Ziggy and Qarik ...I built a pretty much walk in tent out of PVC...it is completely adjustable from about 4'x4'x4' to a 6.6' cube ...breaks down for very little storage space ... ... my table has been a couple of folding saw horses from harbor freight...got them on sale for under $10/pr ... ... ... ...all in all I have maybe 435 invested ...the table top is a 3/8" x 2'x3' piece of clear plexi I got from a "scrap" yard here ( The Yard is the Name of the company ...) I sanded all the PVC pipe to fit in its connectors loosely for ease of set up and tear down...my diffusers are king and queen sized flat sheets I purchased at the GoodWills, Dav and other thrift stores and then I bleached the crap out of them to get them all pretty much the same shade of white, lighting is by flash since I own 8 studio lights i can go top bottom sides and front ... I do a slit in the front so that I can light the front evenly also....

lately I have been using the table with a sweep backdrop of white and then using 4 lights behind umbrellas and that is working surperbly ...so I may never set up the tent again...