The Beginner's Guide to Product Photography

Introduction

We’ve all seen images of products that really stand out, and have probably seen just as many that look terrible. You only need to check online marketplaces like eBay and Facebook Marketplace to see what we mean. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. It is therefore imperative that you nail your product photos and make sure those thousand equivalent words are all positive! This guide is for anyone looking to get the most out of their products via good product photography, therefore boosting sales of their consumer items such as jewellery, make up, model figurines, and even food items such as cakes.

When it comes to running your own e-commerce business, or just simply want to sell on marketplaces (like eBay), the product’s photo is often the ‘make-or-break’ aspect of the sale, and is arguably far more important to get right than the wording around it. With that in mind we’ve put together a handy guide that details the things you must do to get the most out of your product photography.

2.      Set Up Your Lighting Equipment

Depending on the above, your setup may be more temporary in the case of a lighting box, or a permanent studio in the case of larger products. It’s good to set up in an area that isn’t in the way, or somewhere you need to pass through a lot. Not only could you dirty the background by walking through the area often, you could also trip over the power cables of the lights (NOT recommended!).

*If your equipment is a Light Cube, skip to part 3*

We suggest setting up a softbox either side of the product – one left and one right. Then angle down the softboxes towards the subject at a rough 45-degree angle. Depending on whether you want soft or harder shadows, your positioning of the softboxes will change. The closer the light source, the softer the light. When taking photos of products typically you don’t want to see any shadows, what we want to see is a bright uniformly white (or whatever colour you’ve chosen) background. So, to achieve this we want the softboxes as close as possible without actually being in the shot. This technique provides the bonus of making post production editing a lot easier as you can remove block colours easily in programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

When setting up your paper background make sure that you do so with a “sweep” effect, namely make sure your paper background curves from the vertical plane to the horizontal plane, rather than having a clear edge. Think more like how a skateboarder’s halfpipe goes from horizontal to vertical in one smooth curve, rather than where your living room floor meets the wall. Those right angles are a shadow trap and will distract the buyer’s eye from the product, also making editing the photo harder for you in post. The emphasis of the photo MUST be on the product - the more that the background is muddied then the more attention is taken away from the product and the less professional the photos (and therefore you as a seller) will look, hampering your sales.

4.      The Classic Product Photography Angles to Take

No product can be considered fully photographed until you have these angle shots at the very minimum. There’s a reason why every successful e-commerce company has these angles displayed of every product on their store, and usually present them in the same order each time!

·        Front on – the classic product shot, easily identifiable and displaying the product exactly how the manufacturer intended.

·        Side Profile – Usually at eye-level, the profile shot of the item shows the side of the item, as if you were 90 degrees from it.

·        Angled Photo (45 degree) – Taken from both a 45-degree above the front, and a 45-degree angle to the side. Great for giving the product that 3D real look. 

·        Rear – The reverse of the product, useful for filling in the customers mental image and helping them visualise the entire product.

·        Bird’s Eye View – Taken from directly above, capturing a different view not often seen.

·        Detail – Picking out a particular selling point or highlight of the product. This could be the brand name/logo.

·        Eye level – Also known as low level or ‘worm eye’s view’, this shot can make the product appear large in size, which is useful for many types of products.

After each shot, make sure you check your camera or smartphone’s screen to see a quick preview of how it looks. Trust me, it’s not fun when you get to editing the photos and you realise one of the key photos is blurry and you have to get the product/studio ready again. It’s a mistake you only make once!

Something that may seem counterproductive when you want to get the most out of your shots is the image quality. Many channels such as eBay and Amazon have restrictions on the size of the images you can upload for your products. Even if you are posting images on your own website, you will still want to consider hosting smaller file sized images rather than the fully sized photo. This is due to website loading speeds which could make viewing your images slow or even impossible for those browsing on a phone or on a slow internet connection. Finding a good compromise between image quality and loading speeds is crucial, as if you go too far in one direction the other aspect will suffer.

Conclusion

Hopefully this guide will have provided you all the necessary information to begin taking quality product photos and increasing your website/channel’s sales. The more products you photograph, the more you will find your skills improving and it will become second nature. You will also develop an eye for shot framing and really bring out those defining product features. The best thing to do is to get stuck in and give it a go. We’re confident that by following everything in this guide you can’t go far wrong!