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Just starting out with a legit camera and learning about lighting (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This was my first real try with setting up a photo and using light stands. Got a lot to learn but I think I'm hooked!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Is this with a flash or with continuous lighting? The reason I ask is that I do product photography for my wife's business and I found it much easier to do with flash. There are a couple benefits I found:

There is just a ton more light to play with. This lets you stop down the aperture and increase the depth of field in your shot. Looking closely at your shot, the front of the spyglass and the rear of the cases are out of focus, something that you could fix by stopping down to 8.0 or so (where I do most of my photography these days).
Related to above, the extra light lets you shoot at a lower ISO. Your shot has lots of noise in it which tells me that the ISO is pretty high. I typically shoot at 200 or so, something that would be impossible without the all the light from a flash. Also note that this could be due to compression that happened when it was uploaded to lemmy, so if you don't see this in your version, then you can disregard.

I think you have done a great job with what I find to be the hardest part of product photography, the composition. In other words, the products are all laid out in an interesting and appealing way. I find that side of photography really tough and it is the part that is hard or impossible to teach if you don't really have an eye for it.

If I were to offer some constructive criticism, its that the backdrop is not the most flattering. The uneven texture emphasizes the noise in the image, and the seam cutting through at an angle doesn't really add anything and can be visually distracting. Similarly, some of the billowyness of the backdrop is creating light/dark areas that don't add to the composition.

The types of products I shoot are not metallic, so I don't have to worry about specular reflections, but it is something to keep in mind when photographing subjects like this. For example, the smooth metallic surfaces of these instruments really make things like dust/fuzz stand out. As an example, see the dial around and central bottom surface of the instrument on the left. This can be an aesthetic choice though (it almost look cobwebby), so that is why I just say to keep it in mind.

Great work! Keep it up!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Wow, thanks for taking the time to write this up! This was continuous lighting, I'm hoping to get a better feel for creating my light source. There are a few out of focus points that I want to look at sharpening up, as it is I'm still using the auto feature so manual is next on the list for experimenting.

Completely agree on the backdrop haha. I saw some cheap home studio techniques online and wanted to try it out myself. I'm planning to pick up a black sheet but the stores were closed yeterday for the holiday and I didn't want to wait so I grabbed the darkest material I had.

As for the dust/fuzz, I certainly noticed how much was being picked up but wanted to see if I could use it to get a bit of an older/weathered look. If I try this piece again I'll remove it, I don't think it did what I was hoping.