Product Photos: Feedback?

Tommyboy · April 5, 2008

I've recently taken up smoking a pipe. Acquiring such a habit necessarily leads to the purchase of several pipes. My brother is also a collector and I want to photograph his collection next weekend.

I purchased a Photoflex Lite Igloo. I have two speedlights (580EXII and 430EX) and two softboxes. I shoot the speedlights on full power and meter with a flashmeter. I'm shooting with a 40D and a Canon 100mm macro lens.

Here are a few of the results:

Peterson's #03, St. Patrick's Day 2008

1

2

3

Stanwell Majestic 179

4

5

6

For a first effort, I'm very pleased with these results. I experimented with moving the flashes around, behind, above, but the best results seemed to be direct from the sides or slightly out front. The focal length of my lens has me shooting outside the enclosure, and sometimes I get reflections from the lights. I can't quite make out what's happening on the surface here:

7

Thanks for looking. Any comments or criticism would be welcome.

Scott_Quier · April 5, 2008

I'm not a product photography expert (or any kind of photography expert for that matter), but I think I've read somewhere that it's generally not a good idea for the photographer to appear in the product shots. Examples of this appera in 1, 2, 3, and maybe in #7.

All that aside, I think these are very good and I would be way satisfied with the results. They are well lit without being over-lit, focus seems to be quite good, though I'm thinking the DOF is a little too shallow in a couple of them.

Product Photos: Feedback?

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