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July 03, 2005
Product photography
One of the elements of our mobile device database subscription is web-ready images of all the devices. So as we get ready to launch the service, we are knee deep in product photography. We are actually creating "print ready" quality images of each device, but only distributing web quality (72 dpi) images with the subscription. We may get into selling the print ready stock photographs as an additional service later.
We've got a little product photography studio set up in the office. We are using a Nikon D2X professional camera with a macro lense / macro flash setup. This is a truly amazing camera. 12.4 megapixels with some really nice features such as automatic hotspot reduction, multiple focus zones (with the digital lenses), etc.
We've got a nice lighting setup for the phones. We have an infinite horizon diffusion background set against a light diffusion tent. This sits on a light table, and we light from the front on both sides. Using daylight bulbs this allows us to illiminate almost all shadows around the device without almost any glare at all. Mobile phones are really tricky to photograph because they have lots of shiny plastic and chrome faces, so we have to really diffuse the light down to the point where we aren't getting any glare. We do this by using some flash diffusing umbrellas and some diffuse material over the other lights, and a light diffusion tent for the backlight.
Nikon has some nice software capture software that allows us to set the entire profile for the session on a connected (USB2) computer (apple) and control the entire camera from the computer. We can even control the focus. So once we get the camera position set up, we can take as many pictures as we want, changing the levels, balance, speed, aperture, lighting type/temperature, etc. without ever touching the camera. It's pretty amazing. And no need to fuss with downloads/multimedia cards; the software saves the image right to our portable drive.
Once a device is phtographed, the photo has to be photoshopped. We've brought in a pro to photoshop all the images. They have to be color corrected if need be, touched up (the downside of taking the photos AFTER we've been using them) and all the trademarks have to be removed.
Our product photography studio setup. That thing next to the phone is a grey card used for setting levels.
Posted by David Adams at July 3, 2005 01:12 PM
Comments
That's a pretty sweet setup! I really want a D2X, but I think I will probably end up with something more low-rent like a D70. I never use my N80 (film) camera anymore. Guess I'm just a 21st century digital boy.
Posted by: James A. Hillyerd at July 5, 2005 12:09 PM
Hey, the D70 is a very nice camera. If we didn't need to have print quality images, that is the phone I would have gone for.
Posted by: David Adams at July 5, 2005 12:49 PM
Can you put a sample up on this blog when you have one? Would be nice to see the output :)
It's a shame you have to remove all the trademarks. I guess it doesn't fall under "Fair Use" then?
Posted by: Chaz at July 6, 2005 11:02 AM
Am an Architecture student wishing to know how huge a studio is required to do the shoot above...if any one else can help me i would be grateful...mostly bout the dimentions of studios..a little more bout equipment......thanks
Posted by: sirisha at November 21, 2005 07:57 PM