{"id":601,"date":"2007-10-11T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T15:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-10-11\/601"},"modified":"2007-10-11T00:01:28","modified_gmt":"2007-10-10T15:01:28","slug":"trying-my-hand-at-product-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-10-11\/601","title":{"rendered":"Trying My Hand at Product Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>250 sec, f\/2.2, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nSilk Shirt: an old Kimono Reborn<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I tried my hand at product photography for the first time today, for a\nKyoto<\/span> charity that takes the wonderful silk fabrics from old kimonos and\nturns them into stylish garments. Ladies in small, rural villages in\nvarious south-east Asian countries (Laos, Cambodia, etc.) who have been\ntrained by the charity actually do the sewing, by hand or on pedal-powered\nsewing-machines provided by the charity. The whole<\/span> point is to provide\npeople in these small villages a way<\/span> to earn a living<\/span> without having to\nleave their village\/family behind.<\/p>\n\n

The charity's name is “Reborn”, which I'd guess refers both to the\nkimono fabric, and to the vibrancy of the related small villages.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\n1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Anyway, as part of helping them to create a web<\/span> site via which they can\nmarket the resulting products, I thought<\/span> I'd try photographing some of the\nitems.<\/p>\n\n

I've never done product photography, but I know<\/span> that it's much more\ndifficult than one might think.<\/p>\n\n

I'm sure that it involves a lot of things that I don't<\/span> know about, but\namong the things that I know<\/span> I should<\/span> know about that I actually<\/span> know the\nleast about, I know no<\/span> limit to how little I know<\/span> about lighting.<\/p>\n\n

I could have used this as an excuse to buy a lot<\/span> of equipment that I may<\/span>\nor may not ever learn how to use, but I started<\/span> small and bought only a medium-sized flash umbrella<\/a>\n(paying here in Kyoto, I see now<\/span>, exactly twice what it would have cost me\nin The States) and an adapter that allows me to connect the umbrella and a\nflash<\/span> unit to a stand.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I really don't understand the deal with flash\/umbrella stands. I could<\/span> have paid $60 for a short,<\/span> cheap stand to hold the flash unit, or $8 for an\nultra-cheap tripod that folded smaller, set up larger, and was more stable. In the end<\/span>, I paid nothing<\/span> and just used my old cheap tripod to hold the\nflash and umbrella.<\/p>\n\n

I knew I needed at least an umbrella because I knew<\/span> I needed<\/span> to use\nartificial lighting, and reflecting the flash off of the shiny under-surface\nof a photography<\/span> umbrella spreads the light out over a wide<\/span> area, turning\nharsh shadows into a pillowy<\/span>-soft glow.<\/p>\n\n

(For your future reference, “pillowy-soft” is generally considered to be\nbetter than “harsh.”)<\/p>\n\n

When photographing static products, I'd guess<\/span> it's nice to have a clean,<\/span>\nuneventful background, so I took<\/span> a big<\/span> white cloth that I found<\/span> being used\nas a dust<\/span> cover over some boxes, and threw it over a rolling<\/span> whiteboard.\nThat became my background.<\/p>\n\n

Here's a shot I took of the setup, after I was<\/span> all done:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 23mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nWorking Setup<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

That's the setup I used for photographing some small jewelry pouches,\nwhich were placed on the cloth-covered box in the center. For photographing<\/span> the clothes, the tripod was set up much further back, outside the room in a\nhallway,<\/span> so that I could<\/span> get the maximum distance between the camera and\nthe mannequin, and between the mannequin and the background. The further<\/span> behind the target the background is placed, the more out-of-focus the\nbackground becomes, and hence, more “uneventful.”<\/p>\n\n

The flash umbrella is on the table (along with a bunch<\/span> of toys —\nAnthony was with me), and my Nikon SB-800 flash unit was set up inside,\nfacing the umbrella so that the target was bathed in the reflected light.\nThe SB-800 was in slave mode, while my Nikon D200's flash was in commander\nmode, at 1\/128th<\/sup> power. (It was at that low power so that its\nlight didn't contribute to the image.)<\/p>\n\n

I used my Nikon D200 and my Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 for all the shots, at\n1\/60th<\/sup> second at ISO 200. For a while<\/span> I shot<\/span> at f\/2.2 or f\/2.8,\nusing the relatively wide aperture to enhance the out-of-focusness of the\nbackground.<\/p>\n\n

After a while, I realized<\/span> that I was<\/span> having trouble ensuring everything\nwas in focus, so I switched<\/span> to f\/4.5 to increase the depth of field, at the\nrisk of making the background a more<\/span> impactful part of the image.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nClose-up Crop to Show the Fabric<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I took shots of about 50 items, and after this little bit of experience, I have a<\/span> small list of things I'd do differently next time.<\/p>\n\n

The first would be to work on the background, since it's too dark and\ntoo busy in many of these shots. One method<\/span> would be to buy a real<\/span> studio\nbackdrop cloth and stand, but I'd have no way to transport or store such\nlarge items, so the other practical approach would be to place a flash<\/span>\nbehind the mannequin, facing the backdrop. This would eliminate shadows on\nthe backdrop, and make it brighter so that hopefully it just disappeared as\na sheet<\/span> of pure white.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\n1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Another thing I'd do is bring a large<\/span>-high-contrast focus target to make\nfocusing easier. I had a<\/span> hard time focusing with many of the fabrics, even\nwith the benefits of the Katz Eye<\/a> I installed<\/span> last\nsummer. This is one case where a new<\/span> D3\/D300 would have a big<\/span> impact, since\nyou can use their new zoomed live-preview move effortlessly achieve\nabsolutely perfect<\/b> focus.<\/p>\n\n

It was particularly challenging to photograph dark fabrics. I had to<\/span> boost the exposure compensation on the next one\nto get reasonable results. Unfortunately, that also increased the harshness of the background shadows.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\n1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/5.6, ISO 200—\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Some were a challenge to “dress” in a way<\/span> that showed them well. The light<\/span> jacket below, shown over a dark<\/span> shirt, looks in my photo more like\nsomething from L.L. Bean or an outdoorman's shop than the high-class,\nelegant wrap it was.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\n1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Long dresses were really difficult because I had<\/span> to move them further\nfrom the camera to get them to fit into the frame, which pushed them right\nup against the backdrop.<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>\n1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n<\/td><\/a>\n1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n
<\/a>\n1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/4.5, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nMore Pretty Fabric<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 200 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nJewelry Pouch<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

All in all it was fun, and the results, while no where near\nprofessional, were good enough for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I tried my hand at product photography for the first time today, for a Kyoto charity that takes the wonderful silk fabrics from old kimonos and turns them into stylish garments. Ladies in small, rural villages in various south-east Asian countries (Laos, Cambodia, etc.) who have been trained by the charity actually do the sewing, by hand or on pedal-powered sewing-machines provided by the charity. The whole point is to provide people in these small villages a way to earn a living without having to leave their village\/family behind.<\/p>

The charity's name is \"Reborn\", which I'd guess refers both to [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}