When you want to take great product photos, you need to have very good tools. Essentially, you can have all the talent, but having these tools at your disposal can boost your productivity quite a lot and possibly triple the product’s sales.
5 things you should get to make great product photos
The things we’re going to discuss are cameras for product photography, shooting tables, cycloramas, background removers, and light tents. Once you’re done reading this, you’ll know what to look for when getting started with product photography.
1. Camera for product photography
Obviously, the first thing we need for any kind of photography is a camera, and we need to find a good but affordable option because there are many cameras on the market that have different specs, and it’s a huge hassle to pick from the crowd. So, we suggest three:
- Panasonic LUMIX G85: A great choice for photographers who care about fine detail, and it’s mirrorless so we can shoot faster. Also, it has a five-axis image stabilization system. Finally, it’s a very affordable option.
- Nikon D850 FX-Format Digital SLR: This is a more expensive option, but it’s worth it because the resolution is 45.7 megapixels, it has great battery power, and it’s a good solution for businesses that mean business.
- Canon EOS 6D Mark II: It’s water and dust-resistant. The resolution is 26.2 megapixels. It has an intelligent viewfinder, and it supports Bluetooth, NFC (Near-field communication), and Wi-Fi.
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These three are probably the best possible choice for professional product photography. But, you still need other equipment if you want to be able to display a great photo on your product brochure or website or if you do product photography for a living.
2. Shooting table
A foldable shooting table always comes in handy. You can carry it with you to your clients or wherever and whenever you’d like to shoot some photos of a product you want to sell. The two top picks for shooting tables:
- Fovitec portable shooting table: It’s a shooting table with a white backdrop, a suitable item for photographs that are taken for e-commerce purposes. Because the backdrop is white, there are no reflections or glare.
- Flashpoint shooting table: This is a plexiglass shooting table that’s foldable and portable. It offers an amazing backlight effect because of the plexiglass, but the light will depend on the type of camera you have.
3. Cyclorama
A cyclorama is something that every photographer should have, especially if you don’t have a shooting table. It provides the best background for product photos because it’s designed to look like an infinite white loop behind a product.
Equipping yourself with a cyclorama ensures that you’ll always have a good background for your products. There’s no reflection, no glare, no nothing, just the product and pure white behind it. If it’s not essential, then it should be considered an essential tool.
4. Background remover
Professional photography sometimes requires the use of software that can remove the background from an image. Think about it. Whether you’re a wedding photographer, a food photographer, or a product photographer, you need this kind of software.
When a photobomber enters your background, you can easily remove it and keep everything as it is. It’s a great solution because it’s cheaper than getting a cyclorama or a shooting table, and it’s useful even when you own these pieces of equipment.
Imagine taking a photo of a product in your cyclorama or on your shooting table, and a fly or any kind of bug lands on it. There’s no need to use any expensive editing software when you can use a simple background remover.
5. Lightboxes
Lightboxes perform a similar function to shooting tables or cycloramas. However, if you truly want to get rid of any shadows at all, these are fantastic pieces of equipment. They’re usually equipped with LED light beads, and these can be dimmable. These are the top three picks:
- Glendan Portable Photo Studio Light Box: It has 112 LED light beads and a dimmable range from 1%-100%. This means that we can adjust the brightness as we’d like. We can make the background brighter or softer. You can shoot photos from multiple angles, and you can assemble the box easily. There’s also a reflection board and a diffuser for the lights to make the photos even more advanced. It’s for products that can fit into a 30×30 cm box.
- DUCLUS Mini Photo Studio Light Box: This one is two times cheaper than the first one, but it comes with 40 LED beads. The opening is curved, and there are two openings so you can shoot from different angles. It’s great for shooting products, but the size is a little smaller. It’s a box with 20 cm sides. So, it’s suitable for shooting smaller products. If you’re looking to shoot larger products, you can use a background remover.
- Upgrade Emart Photography Table Light Box: At the same price as the first one, this lightbox is suitable for larger products because its dimensions are 40x34x36 cm (LxWxH). It has four different backgrounds, and it comes with 104 LED light strips. The background colors are white, grey, blue, and black. You can carry it anywhere, and there are USB power plugs.
YouTube: 5 mistakes to avoid in product photography (Peter McKinnon)
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by rawpixel.com. The picture showing the photo studio setup with softbox was prepared by Africa Studio.
