E-commerce Photography – 5 Tips for Better Product Photos
E-commerce Photography: 5 Simple Tips for Better Product Shots
1. Soft/Even lighting – Photographers use contrast and shadows to create atmosphere, but for product shots, ditch the art for clarity. Dark shadows and bright highlights can influence the appearance of a product which can prove to be deceptive to a customer. To avoid this kind of lighting, bounce light towards an object, pull the light away or even try lighting from above. This will provide the necessary illumination, but won’t create a harsh glare.
2. A Steady Hand – If you’re using a digital camera (which, let’s face it, you are) the LCD display on the back of your camera is what you check to see how the shot turned out. The problem with that, however, is you can’t always see camera shake on your 2”x 2” screen. With product photography you’re looking for product detail, so the closer you take the photograph, the more obvious the blur will be. Go out and get a tripod and, if you have one, use a remote shutter release for even more stability. Steadiness is key. If you follow this rule, you’ll see an immediate difference in the sharpness of your images.
3. Focus/Zoom – Zooming in before taking a photograph has its pros and cons. The pro is that you reduce the distortion from the lens, and it becomes more like a telephoto lens. The con is that you lose your depth of field and, depending on the product, parts of your image may be out of focus. The solution is to find a balance in the middle and refocus your camera before shooting each product. Also, putting your camera in aperture priority mode will help you attain the largest in-focus area, especially if you’re getting up close and personal with the product.
4. Over/Under Exposure – Similar to the first tip, misusing over or under exposure can cause your image to lose important details like the contours, edges and color strength. Under expose one or two stops when shooting on white and over expose one or two stops when shooting on black to retain the integrity of your product against the background. You can always go back and doctor an image before it goes live, which leads me to my last tip.
5. Image editing software –Photoshop. Learn it. If you’re good at it, you can transform a terrible image into a decent product shot. Just don’t forget that the more you shop your image, the more quality you’ll lose. So if you’re shooting the photos yourself, save yourself the post production time and work and shoot your photos better.
Ecommerce photos are one of the most overlooked things in most of the sites that I shop from today. Too many of them use photos that are too dark, too grainy, too large (file size) or just plain wrong. Since it’s been told again and again that a picture is worth 1000 words (Barnard) it amazes me that sites don’t spend a bit more time on tweaking these images.
I am by no means a great photographer or image editing-connoisseur but I do know a bad picture when I see one. Please, this is a request to all graphic designers, take a minute to look at the shot before you clip it and upload it to the site.
Thanks for backing me up on this. And you’re right, it doesn’t take a professional photographer to notice that a picture is awful. Take care.
My only question is, when looking for a position with an ecommerce company, when jobs are posted, (rare) they list all the qualifications etc they are looking for then when someone, (me) applies I don’t hear back from them.
Is this pretty common in this industry, that is to look to hire someone then not reply to their Resume?
Are my images that bad?
Tim: I sent my resume to many places while searching for a job, and i rarely heard back from employers. Unfortunately nowadays, it doesn’t take much for a person to be a photographer, just pick up a camera and start shooting. So, what’s important is to show people how you can apply photography to other things and push the limits of your camera. Clean photos on white of products isn’t really that difficult to produce, so if you can show them your real capabilities including simple product photos, I think you’ll have better luck. Keep in mind, there are a lot of companies out there that are looking for new interesting ways to display their products. I believe creativity and technique are in many ways more important than meeting requirements, so always show your best and most interesting work. Hope this helps!
guys what are your thoughts on taking images to the next dimension?
thoughts
http://www.photospherix.com/4.asp
I think product photography is one of the most crucial parts of having an ecommerce store. It can be the difference between selling a few and selling a ton.
I started http://myproductshots.com/ because product photography is a little expensive, yet people still need good looking shots of their products. It’s not a real replacement for actual photography, but I hope it can help some increase sales. Great article.
Internet download speeds have increased to a level that 360 degree product photography is becoming more and more common on ecommerce sites. Not all products warrant the effort and additional cost but some do, cars, motorcycles, fashion items etc.
@Matt Smith – I would agree with Nick’s comment that not all products warrant that type of treatment.
However, people like to do a lot of research and as much information as possible on big purchases, and rightfully so.
Check out http://www.smith-wesson.com/. We did some 360 view functionality for some of their most popular guns, the M&P Series.
360 product photography has been popular in Europe for years and is gaining speed here in the US. In the last year, some of the largest online retailers have been adopting it. We have a robotic photography system that allows the capture of spin images in a very quick and repeatable way. What that means is that it is not just for large and expensive products anymore? Market research has shown that online retailers will benefit from spinning almost any product, big or small. Check out our site and blog at http://www.snap36.com, I think you’ll find it interesting.
I have to agree with both Nick and Pete. There is always a time and place for everything.
The thing I am always reminding myself is that just because I think it doesn’t need a 360 never means the client doesn’t think it needs one.
Even with these tips, there is so much more to ecommerce photography and unless you know still life photography often keeping it in house is more expensive (time, training, gear, etc) than outsourcing. If you pictures aren’t stunning you can loose customers. It’s also a good idea to implement a solid return policy to gain buyers trust when shopping online. I’ve done a lot of work with business starting up and this is the number one setback. Hope this helps some!