20 January 2012
Not everyone has a budget that stretches to accommodate the rates of a professional and although you can’t expect to get quite the same results, remembering a few useful pointers can help you to produce shots of your products that are more than passable for use on most eCommerce sites.

Here are a 6 important things to remember if you are considering having a go…

1. Prepare the space

Find a big enough space that can be dedicated to the shoot (for a few days if need be) and in which the natural light can be fully controlled. Pin up a large sheet of white card (matt) with no creases to completely ‘white-out’ the background using a gradual curve to run from the wall and onto the floor (or onto a table if the products are small enough).

2. Get the camera

Buy, beg, borrow or steal (don’t really steal it) the best camera you can, become familiar with it’s use and then mount it on a tripod pointing downwards towards the set at about 40/45 degrees. (A tripod will keep your shots consistent and reduce camera shake)

3. Keep things clean

Your meticulously clean (but not shiny) product should be placed at it’s most favorable angle in the middle of the card and just before the start of the curve. Try to use a suitable display stand (again matt white) to help with the positioning. If necessary add a prop to enhance the image or provide a sense of scale. This is not easy and rather time consuming but well worth the effort as the right dressing can really help bring the image to life.

4. Mind the edges

Allow the image to fill the frame as much as possible remembering to leave some white space around the edge for cropping or future editing. Try to use at least two bright ambient light sources, positioned above and behind the camera (suitable lights can be hired on a daily basis from many photographic shops).

5. Avoid glare

Be careful to eliminate reflections of the light from the products which will cause burnt out white spots on your image. Try to hire a white umbrella which diffuses the spots by letting the light pass through it. Failing this use a piece of white paper or card positioned, or held (by a willing assistant) behind the camera.

6. Be methodical

The captured image should be a minimum size of 850 x 650 pixels if shooting at 72 dots per inch. Once the shoot is complete the files can be copied, edited and optimized for web use by you (if you have a suitable image editing application such as Photoshop) or your web designer at a later stage.
Whilst saving the images remember to give them meaningful names. Having a few hundred seven digit default camera file names can leave you with a headache and an awful lot of sorting out when it comes to categorizing and organizing them. Always try to be methodical and save each file as you go