Especially if they lie together and the light shines through them in strange ways. But as they are transparent they are quite hard to light.
In real life, they look almost golden and very tasty in a way. The client wanted not only plastic bottles in the picture, but also the small Omega-3 pills. Shiny transparent pills, and slippery too I just placed it on the table near the products and a soft shadow appeared on the left side (as seen from the camera), just enough to make the bottles look like bottles, and not like flat objects. The easiest way to add shadows in table top photography is just to place something dark close to the product just outside the frame to remove spill light and reflected light.īy some strange reason I didn’t have any black paper or board to use, but I had a black bag that worked just as well. The main light together with the light from the side needed a little more shadow (on the other side) to define the shapes of the bottles better. When the right products were in place, the image felt a little flat. A Profoto Softbox Octa 150 cm in diameter (5 feet) did the trick. Light 3 – Background LightĪs I mentioned earlier, the final image would need a lot of post processing to get the background light grey all around, so this background light was mostly to minimize the risk of getting the edges on the products too dark. The white plastic material in the bottles was very easy to blow out so I added a reflector with diffusion material to soften the light a bit, between the softbox and the products.
The resulting test shots from this setups showed that the side lighting was a little bit too hard. To get the small light on the side even smaller, I added a mask to the softbox that makes opening only 7 centimeters wide (2-3 inches). I used a Profoto Strip Softbox 30 x 120 cm (1 x 4 feet) for that. The idea with a little light from the side was to define the round or cylindrical shape of the plastic bottles. If the light comes from a lower position, there will be no shadow and the products would seem to be floating on the background. I angled the softbox a little towards the products from the camera, but not more than that so I still would have a small shadow directly under the products. The light is very large in comparison to the products so the light should be even enough. The products I shot was quite small, maybe 15 cm (7-8 inches) high, so I used a Profoto Softbox 60 x 90 cm (2 x 3 feet) as my main light from above the table. I did some test shots with a color correction card to use as a reference later when setting the correct white balance and adjust the colors. I didn’t know if we were going to shot the products from an angle, slightly from above maybe, or straight on, so I set up the lights for a setting that allowed either to work.įrom the beginning I worked with the post production in mind, I knew I was going to fake the even background in Photoshop so the lighting didn’t need to be perfectly even, as long as it was light enough. The Studio Lighting Setupīefore the Art Director had arrived with the products, I had prepared a lighting setup using three monolights, all Profoto Compacts. In short, they wanted a very open photo, with lots of space around the products, and the background should no be completely white, rather a light grey with some shadows/reflections from the products. Most of the time I work alone, but having the client or someone from the ad agency assisting helps a lot to avoid any misunderstandings. I was in contact with the Art Director who also was in the photo studio during the shot to help me getting the shot exactly as she and the client wanted it. My latest assignment in this field was a product shot for a company that sells pills of different kinds, they needed a photo for a magazine ad.
Best lighting for tabletop photography professional#
Easy to use for the clients both in their web shops and printed material.Įven if it seems to be easy to achieve decent looking product photos with a cheap camera and a light tent, many clients of mine have already tried that and wants something a little more professional looking. Usually shot on white background with soft shadows and very even lighting. One type of product photography that seem to have a growing demand in the photography market is the clean and simple packshot.
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