Making The Best Of A Point And Shoot Camera

[MMatt]

There are many of us in the same boat here and are starting to import products and/or start an e-commerce business. If you are just starting and low on money, you may be able to utilize your point and shoot camera for a while until you afford a proper dslr.

I am no professional photographer, but have been taking pictures of items for ebay for a while now, all using one cheap camera. With these point and shoots, lighting is extremely important. I recently made a light box for about five bucks. I bought a tri fold cardboard white faced posterboard, and put a curved white piece of regular poster board in front of it. I then pointed two fluorescent lamps I already had at the item. No filters were used so there is some glare. I then put the camera in manual mode and took a series of pictures, adjusting the color, shutter etc. I then uploaded these to the computer to pick out the best quality images and duplicate these settings for all product pictures. It may take some time at first, but since I will regularly be using the same lighting, the settings should stay the same or very close.

And the final product is quite sufficient in my opinion for starting a business on a budget. These pictures will still stand out above many e-bay sellers in most categories.

If anyone has even more pointers for using a point and shoot, feel free to chime in. I am aware a dslr is a better option but some of us might as well utilize what we have to minimize expenses.

 

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[DennisD]

Great stuff!

Lighting is THE MOST important thing here. NEVER use flash. To minimize glare and harsh shadows, used diffused light. (Diffused light = Bouncing light off of a white surface.)

Depending on sensitivity of the make/model of your camera sensitivity different lights give off different color temperatures. I don't usually bother messing around with the in-camera settings I just correct any color problems in photoshop after the fact.

MMatt I know it sounds redundant but can you show us pictures of your lightbox?

 

[Talisman]

Well, I'm having trouble taking pictures of reflective surfaces without showing things in it, if I don't use the flash (otherwise, it's fine).

Also, the background never seems white enough.

 

[JasonR]

That photo is actually pretty damn good, especially for mediocre lighting. I've brightened the shit out of it in Photoshop, and the background still isn't easily extractable in Photoshop. You need better lighting for a pure white background.

However, for ebay/Amazon, your photo is perfectly fine. Good job for using inexpensive equipment.

 

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[biophase]

That photo is actually pretty damn good, especially for mediocre lighting. I've brightened the shit out of it in Photoshop, and the background still isn't easily extractable in Photoshop. You need better lighting for a pure white background.

However, for ebay/Amazon, your photo is perfectly fine. Good job for using inexpensive equipment.

Yup, just put it on picmonkey and up the contrast and brightness a couple notches and you have a pro-quality photo.

 

[stranger]

MMatt I know it sounds redundant but can you show us pictures of your lightbox?

Yeah, it'd be great to see your lightbox MMatt.

 

[MMatt]

Great stuff!

Lighting is THE MOST important thing here. NEVER use flash. To minimize glare and harsh shadows, used diffused light. (Diffused light = Bouncing light off of a white surface.)

Depending on sensitivity of the make/model of your camera sensitivity different lights give off different color temperatures. I don't usually bother messing around with the in-camera settings I just correct any color problems in photoshop after the fact.

MMatt I know it sounds redundant but can you show us pictures of your lightbox?

You are very right about not using flash, i tell this to everyone. Use the flash as little as possible.

I will try to get a pic of the light box when time allows, it's crude but sufficient.

That photo is actually pretty damn good, especially for mediocre lighting. I've brightened the shit out of it in Photoshop, and the background still isn't easily extractable in Photoshop. You need better lighting for a pure white background.

However, for ebay/Amazon, your photo is perfectly fine. Good job for using inexpensive equipment.

I will work on the lighting. These were the two best lamps I had around the house. I do need to start messing with editing software in the coming months as background extraction is important.

Yup, just put it on picmonkey and up the contrast and brightness a couple notches and you have a pro-quality photo.

Thanks for the pointer bio, I have yet to edit any of my product photos, I should probably try it out.

 

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[ableme]

I was quoted $150 for just a few shots of a product I wanted to put on Amazon! So I also researched and built my own light box to do the job for under $15!



Your images look great MMat! Especially using just a point-and-shoot! :eusa_clap:

 

[nitrousflame]

Great shot! I'm a huge advocate of taking your own pics with a cheap DIY lightbox/softbox, especially in the beginning.

One suggestion that I'd make, as others have stated, is to watch the color of your backdrop. If it is white, it should show up as actual white in your photo. This can be done a number of ways, but ideally it is taken care of in-camera at the time of the photo. Perhaps increasing the ISO or bringing the lights in a little closer. It's all about trial and error at first.

The other option is to load it into an image processing program. I use photoshop, but GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program is an excellent free and opensource alternative and there are tons of tutorials on youtube to help you along.

For your example, I simply tweaked the curves to pop the highlights up:

This is what it looks like in photoshop (and nearly identical in gimp):

Keep up the good work!

 

[Darius]

For music videos and any portrait photography that I do, I use three-point lighting. Which is nothing more than three lights.
1. Key light (Main light on your subject. Can be hard or soft depending on your preference. Usually facing your subject from an angle, most say 30 degrees)
2. Fill light (Basically a light to lighten up the darker side of your subject caused by the key light.)
3. Hair Light (A light that is slightly behind and above your subject. Main purpose is to separate the subject from its background)

You can do what nitrous did in photoshop but it can also distort parts of your subject that are already bright if you're not careful .

Hope that helps.

PS: Your three lights could be as simple as three lamps. I Recommend using fluorescent bulbs too.

 

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[MMatt]

Great shot! I'm a huge advocate of taking your own pics with a cheap DIY lightbox/softbox, especially in the beginning.

One suggestion that I'd make, as others have stated, is to watch the color of your backdrop. If it is white, it should show up as actual white in your photo. This can be done a number of ways, but ideally it is taken care of in-camera at the time of the photo. Perhaps increasing the ISO or bringing the lights in a little closer. It's all about trial and error at first.

The other option is to load it into an image processing program. I use photoshop, but GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program is an excellent free and opensource alternative and there are tons of tutorials on youtube to help you along.

For your example, I simply tweaked the curves to pop the highlights up:

This is what it looks like in photoshop (and nearly identical in gimp):

Keep up the good work!

That's awesome! I think it's pretty impressive to say that was shot with a sub $100 camera!

By the way, I made a sale!

 

[nitrousflame]

That's awesome! I think it's pretty impressive to say that was shot with a sub $100 camera!

By the way, I made a sale!

It's not the camera, it's the photographer.

Congrats on the sale!

 

[DennisD]

For music videos and any portrait photography that I do, I use three-point lighting. Which is nothing more than three lights.
1. Key light (Main light on your subject. Can be hard or soft depending on your preference. Usually facing your subject from an angle, most say 30 degrees)
2. Fill light (Basically a light to lighten up the darker side of your subject caused by the key light.)
3. Hair Light (A light that is slightly behind and above your subject. Main purpose is to separate the subject from its background)

You can do what nitrous did in photoshop but it can also distort parts of your subject that are already bright if you're not careful .

Hope that helps.

PS: Your three lights could be as simple as three lamps. I Recommend using fluorescent bulbs too.

You really call it a hairlight? Everywhere I've worked in film we've always called it a 'backlight'.

 

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[JAJT]

I was having a hell of a time recently getting a certain product to shoot right.

I was using white poster board with two daytime bulbs and regardless of my white balance settings in the camera I COULD NOT get the background to look white (it was always bluish) and the subject was darker than I wanted. I played with exposure, white balance, iso, f-stops, the works. No combo worked.

So I read someone suggest the following in photoshop:

- Open your photo
- Go to Layers -> New Adjustment Layer
- Select the bottom eyedropper tool (there should be 3)
- Click the background of your image in it's brightest spot
- Tada!

Literally turned unusable photos I spent hours trying to re-shoot into totally usable photos in seconds.

I'd still prefer to get it right the first time but until I can invest more time at the issue this is an easy compromise.

 

[mayana]

Hey, this is a GREAT thread! I am working on taking better pictures of my products, and these are some amazing ideas.

I think I'm going to build me one of these boxes

Edit:

I just found this post with step-by-step instructions - I am going to try this today

http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent

 

[MMatt]

Is "GIMP" the best free editing software? I think if I want to take it to another level I need to start playing around with editing.

 

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[MMatt]

Hey, this is a GREAT thread! I am working on taking better pictures of my products, and these are some amazing ideas.

I think I'm going to build me one of these boxes

Edit:

I just found this post with step-by-step instructions - I am going to try this today

How to Make An Inexpensive Light Tent – DIY

That looks like a pretty good and simple light box. I like the light being directly above the subject but I imagine it requires a pretty bright bulb or a bit of editing. My light were literally inches from the product and it still came out kind of dark.

 

[Darius]

You really call it a hairlight? Everywhere I've worked in film we've always called it a 'backlight'.

Yea I prefer to use hairlight. I've heard people use backlight also. Im self taught so I prefer to go with the more simpler term. The term seems to be interchangeable. I can see why one would use backlight when not shooting humans.....unless your item has hair lol.

 

[Darius]

Is "GIMP" the best free editing software? I think if I want to take it to another level I need to start playing around with editing.

I say it's one of the best for things of this nature (editing photographs). I used to use that a few years ago to teach myself graphics and it definitely gets the job done and more.

 

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[mayana]

That looks like a pretty good and simple light box. I like the light being directly above the subject but I imagine it requires a pretty bright bulb or a bit of editing. My light were literally inches from the product and it still came out kind of dark.

I made this a few hours ago, and I definitely think I need more light. The pictures came out just about the same as when I just used a white background, natural light and one lamp.

 

[Talisman]

So I read someone suggest the following in photoshop:

- Open your photo
- Go to Layers -> New Adjustment Layer
- Select the bottom eyedropper tool (there should be 3)
- Click the background of your image in it's brightest spot
- Tada!

I've since also found that using the left-most dropper, pick the darkest spot (or something reasonably dark), and it creates a stronger contrast.

 

[cautiouscapy]

Mayana

Something I picked up a while ago when photographing some items for Ebay: and my understanding may be slightly off, so I welcome anyone's comments. But it may help to explain you results.

If you are using a mix of natural light and artificial fluorescent, you need to match the "temperature color" of the artificial light to your local daylight, as a point-and-shoot digital camera can only handle one wavelength range per shot. Many photography fluorescents have a temperature spectrum of 5,600K. According to a couple of sites, UK daylight matches 5,000K bulbs better - I expect you may be fine with 5,600K where you are...but worth a check.

Can anyone expand on that? Might it be relevant in this case?

 

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[MMatt]

Bump, pic of the crude setup I use but it works pretty good for product photos.

 

[yahdmon]

Very usable information right now for me. Many thanks for all the comments.
Heck, we all can benefit from this whether we have products now or not.
If you aiming to build something later, images are essential for posting the product.

 

[ddall]

Bump

Is there not a website that can do this? I thought I read somewhere about a website that will crop your photo into a white background. I am certain I did, allowing you to even take pro looking photos with your cell phone. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

 

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[3dmuscle]

You really call it a hairlight? Everywhere I've worked in film we've always called it a 'backlight'.

or a rim light

 

[nitrousflame]

Bump

Is there not a website that can do this? I thought I read somewhere about a website that will crop your photo into a white background. I am certain I did, allowing you to even take pro looking photos with your cell phone. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

http://fotofuze.com/