Product photography is vital for any business. Especially during the current pandemic, it is not feasible for consumers to visit the store and view the product. Most of the communication today is taking place digitally. People are sharing photographs of their products through various applications and platforms, based on which the consumers decide to make a purchase or not.
Why do you need product photography?
Product photography has been ‘the need of the hour’. It is an utmost necessity for every product. Product photography is a visual representation of your physical product. It gives your consumers a notion of how your product looks. In the E-commerce market, a photograph of a product is the first element that attracts the consumer, and then the consumer looks into further specifications of the product. There are a few product photography tips and product photography ideas that one should consider for taking photographs of a product.
Product photography ideas
Your product photograph should be aesthetically pleasing, irrespective of what you are selling. To make your product appealing, consider the below-mentioned pointers that will help you take amazing photographs.
1. Product Focus
Ensure that your main product is in focus. Consumers should easily identify what you’re trying to sell with the photograph. For beginners, using the rule of thirds is the most effective way to click a good photograph. Draw two lines vertically and two lines horizontally, forming nine equal sections, in your mind. Then focus the main product at the intersection of the lines to get the right frame. This helps to balance the whole image.
Using bokeh professional product photography helps you give a fancy image with the product in focus. Bokeh is clicking the main product with a pleasing effect of a soft out-of-focus background. You can also take a macro shot of a product, such a shot entices a consumer to buy the product. Macro photography is an extremely close–up shot of the product that showcases the product detailing. Macro shots are usually taken for products like jewelry, circuit boards, guitar, food, etc.
2. Play With the Background
Create an appropriate background setting that gives the consumer a fair notion about the product. The settings of a photograph help people understand the utility of a particular product. As it’s often said, ‘Don’t sell a product, sell its benefits’. When people can imagine themselves using the product, it will help sell more.
For instance, when you’re clicking a photograph of a cupboard organizer, it will give consumers a better idea of the product utility if you click the organizer with clothes, towels, or books placed in it. You can also click a product with a background, without a complete focus on a product. You can use contrasting colors to attract attention or ignite the thoughts of the consumer. For instance, clicking a bag with a model or a beater immersed in a coffee mug.
3. Product Elements
When you are clicking a product, there are various product photography techniques to showcase the product elements. Basis the type of your product, you can select the product shoot ideas that will be appropriate for your product.
You should click all the variations of your product, for instance, all 4 colors available for a particular bag. One of the important product photography ideas is to click a product in use. Also giving a real touch to the product is more appealing to a consumer than clicking a photograph with a plain white background. Featuring real people in your shoot helps to connect with the consumers. You can also use additional props to brighten your product with that extra touch. For instance, placing bakery utensils around the cake will make your cake look more interesting.
4. Understand Angles
The angle you click your product from can make a huge difference. You should understand how different angles and different model poses make your product look. Take multiple shots from different angles to get the best strategic shot. As a beginner, you can also use these product photography tips to experiment with angles.
- Flat lay photography is clicking a photograph from a bird’s eye view. You place all related products flat on the surface and then click a shot from the top.
- Contradictory to an aerial view, a low angle shot is a worm’s eye view. You use a wider lens to click a photo from the floor angle with the camera facing slightly upward. When clicking real people, this angle gives a notion of an elongated view and makes people look taller than they are.
- Straight on photography is one of the simplest forms. You can easily take the shot using essential photographic gear by holding the camera straight, or with a tripod, ensuring clean lines in the background. This is usually used for products placed against the wall like frames, bookshelves or interior designing.
- Macro photography is taking a close-up photograph of a product. Your hand needs to be very firm here, hence, you usually need a tripod or flat surface to click macro photographs.
Camera Equipment and Lighting
When you are clicking for a professional purpose, it is advisable to use a professional camera only. You can use a DSLR or mirrorless camera for clicking photographs for your website or E-commerce page. Using a professional camera helps you get a high-quality product photograph.
Some of them also use their smartphones. Depending on your smartphone and its camera quality, you can use it for clicking social media photographs. Following the above-mentioned product photography ideas, you will be able to click decent standard photographs with your smartphone for social media uploads as well. If you are a beginner, there are chances that your hand will tremble even while clicking from a smartphone and will eventually lead to blurry pictures. Using a tripod helps your hand to stay firm and prevents your hand from trembling.
A good quality tripod is suitable to click from any angle. It is very effective for different types of photography, especially when you want to click different products from various perspectives. Before selecting a tripod, ensure that the tripod stand is robust and durable enough for your product shoots. Whether you are clicking with your smartphone or a professional camera, using a tripod can help you click a better standard photograph. A tripod helps to add stability to your product photography ideas and alleviates your shoot experience.
Irrespective of the equipment you are using for product photography, it is very important to consider the basics of lighting. You can either use natural lighting or studio lighting. This will depend on the product and the platform for which the photographs will be used. Photographs with natural lighting can be used for social media. If you are shooting outdoors, then a suitable time to shoot is early morning or late afternoon when the sun is present. If you are shooting for a website or an E-commerce platform then you need a studio lighting setup to get the required photographs.
Editing the photographs
Post your product shoot, you should check if the output of the shoot is similar to what you were expecting. If it is not the case, then one of the most important product photography ideas is to edit the photograph. Editing your photograph can make a little magic happen.
Once you are done with your shoot and you have good quality images then editing is the final stage of product photography. If your product was clicked in good lighting then you can use that photograph by resizing as per the platform you want to use it for. In the absence of good lighting, you will need to edit the picture and balance the lighting in the image. For this, you can refer to photography tutorials or hire a good editor who could do the work for you.
