Need help with product photo

dugmar

I have tried to photograph this part for our online catalog and I am getting frustrated. I want the entire part to be in focus, but when I close the lens down it just doesn't look right. Something about a higher AV makes it less appealing The part reflects everything because of its shiny finish and shape.

How would you photograph this part to make it look right?

Thanks,

Doug

photocat

dugmar wrote:

I have tried to photograph this part for our online catalog and I am getting frustrated. I want the entire part to be in focus, but when I close the lens down it just doesn't look right. Something about a higher AV makes it less appealing The part reflects everything because of its shiny finish and shape.

How would you photograph this part to make it look right?

Thanks,

Doug

what is it Doug? Maybe if I know what it is I can come up with a sensible answer...

dugmar

photocat wrote:

what is it Doug? Maybe if I know what it is I can come up with a sensible answer...

Shift knob for a BMW. About 4" high.

thanks,

Doug

photocat

dugmar wrote:

Shift knob for a BMW. About 4" high.

thanks,

Doug

would it be better in frog perspective? I have no knowledge of autoparts what so ever, just trying to think here...

dugmar

photocat wrote:

would it be better in frog perspective? I have no knowledge of autoparts what so ever, just trying to think here...

Frog?

mercphoto

Product photo

dugmar wrote:

I have tried to photograph this part for our online catalog and I am getting frustrated. I want the entire part to be in focus, but when I close the lens down it just doesn't look right. Something about a higher AV makes it less appealing The part reflects everything because of its shiny finish and shape.

How would you photograph this part to make it look right?

To get rid of the reflections of the windows behind you, you need to put it inside a light box. This will also help soften the highlights of any light that does illuminate it. Getting the entire part in-focus will be very difficult. Things that help is a very small aperture, or orienting the part so that it is mostly parallel to the film plane. But, an artful drop-in-focus can look rather stunning. Experiment with many A settings.

A circular polarizer can also help with reflections.

photocat

dugmar wrote:

Frog?

perspective like a frog: looking up... Can you put it higher so the reflection falls out? Or is this a stupid suggestion?

mercphoto

No reflections, please

photocat wrote:

perspective like a frog: looking up... Can you put it higher so the reflection falls out.

The entire surface is reflective, so no matter where you look at it from, something will be reflecting off of it. The trick is to have nothing for it to reflect in the first place. You do this by putting the object into a void, which is what a light box is. It is basically surrounding the object with white cloth, peeking a camera in somewhere, and shining the lights in from the outside through the cloth.

dugmar

photocat wrote:

perspective like a frog: looking up... Can you put it higher so the reflection falls out? Or is this a stupid suggestion?

I have to get the shot from above to show the logo. Thanks though!

dugmar

mercphoto wrote:

The entire surface is reflective, so no matter where you look at it from, something will be reflecting off of it. The trick is to have nothing for it to reflect in the first place. You do this by putting the object into a void, which is what a light box is. It is basically surrounding the object with white cloth, peeking a camera in somewhere, and shining the lights in from the outside through the cloth.

Okay, great stuff. Thanks very much. I will give it a go and post my results

Doug

DoctorIt

mercphoto wrote:

The entire surface is reflective, so no matter where you look at it from, something will be reflecting off of it. The trick is to have nothing for it to reflect in the first place. You do this by putting the object into a void, which is what a light box is. It is basically surrounding the object with white cloth, peeking a camera in somewhere, and shining the lights in from the outside through the cloth.

Or at least put a cloth behind you as well - I can see every detail in those windows behind the camera.

dugmar

This is the best I could do with a polarizer.
I can live with this.

DoctorIt

dugmar wrote:

This is the best I could do with a polarizer.
I can live with this.

I kinda like the high reflection factor - really shows the customer high polished this thing is. Need any beta testers on the knob? Mine's gettin' a little worn out.

mercphoto

Ick

dugmar wrote:

This is the best I could do with a polarizer.
I can live with this.

The polarizer seemed to cut out more of the detail in the knob than it did the reflections from behind. It does look better, no doubt, but for catalog use? You might want to re-think that. You're trying to sell this, right?

If you want, ship a shifter knob to me and I'll shoot it in my light tent. Going to be doing some custom blown glass jewelry this weekend and will have that gear out anyway. Get it to me by Friday, I'll have photos before vacation. PM me for an address if you want.

dugmar

mercphoto wrote:

The polarizer seemed to cut out more of the detail in the knob than it did the reflections from behind. It does look better, no doubt, but for catalog use? You might want to re-think that. You're trying to sell this, right?

If you want, ship a shifter knob to me and I'll shoot it in my light tent. Going to be doing some custom blown glass jewelry this weekend and will have that gear out anyway. Get it to me by Friday, I'll have photos before vacation. PM me for an address if you want.

Online catalog. Problem is that there are 6 different ones.
Check it out:
http://www.turnermotorsport.com/html/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=TIN9970000

Let me know what you think...

I've taken hundreds, if not thousands of product photos for our website catalog, none have given me so much grief as this dumb little shift knob!

Some of the product photos I've been very happy with:














Doug

mercphoto

Almost there

dugmar wrote:

Online catalog. Problem is that there are 6 different ones.
Check it out:
http://www.turnermotorsport.com/html/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=TIN9970000

Let me know what you think...

Re-shoot the 5-speed knobs the same way you did the 6-speed knobs and it will look pretty good. Your other website photos look very nice. As you have found, highly reflective items make life difficult!

PerezDesignGroup

You 'need' a lightbox of some sort. Those reflections look extremely unprofessional. People will be more busy trying to figure out 'where
the photo was taken than what they're looking at. At least I did

Try this...

Put the knob on a piece of white posterboard. Then find some white bedding/sheets and wrap them around the entire object and posterboard. Then light the sheets from the left, right and from behind. You may need someone to hold up the sheets in a tent-like pattern while you shoot. Finally, poke the camera through a crack in the sheets and shoot away.

Here's an example.


Ofcourse one of these would be better but more expensive.

Michiel de Brieder

Doug,
There are several steps you might take to achieve the object in full focus and well lit. As a previous poster mentioned, getting the object to be lit in a softbox is the first thing you need to establish. Then take your tripod and take several photos with several focus points (to have every piece of the object at least once in-focus). After that you can layer the photos on each other in a photo editing tool (like photoshop or paint shop pro) and make sure every sharp part is visble (so you'd have to remove pieces of layers or use layer mask to hide parts of a layer).
I hope this is helpful!
Enjoy your weekend!