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Product photography using long exposure
Aug 17, 2012 04:47:00   #
jazzplayer
 
I know most studio photogs who do lots of "tabletop" shooting use pretty sophisticated flash/strobe lighting setups, but I think I managed to get an awful lot of quite passable shots using static lighting and long exposures, at my former place of employ...

Our usual setup for lighting consisted of just a pair of KinoFlo 400 (4x4' flourescent) daylight-spectrum video studio fixtures. Use of static lighting gave us the opportunity for some mighy zippy "assembly line" shooting, taking advantage of the "what you see through the viewfinder is what you get" aspect, and requiring extremely little in the way of exposure bracketing.

These pics were all shot with a Canon 1Ds, 28-200mm lens, ISO200, shutter ranging from 2.5 to 5sec., and usually one setting short of the smallest available aperture. Unfortunately I don't own the large originals, so exact camera data for each shot is unavailable. An interesting point of note is that the heavily criticized (and discontinued) 28-200mm lens seemed to be perfect for this particular shooting scenario.

Bear in mind that the quality standard we always had to meet was merely "good enough for the average shopper", and we always tried to adhere to a matter-of-fact portrayal. But after shooting this way for years, I have always wondered what critique these kinds of pics might receive from actual pro photographers, so let me have it!

Note the 30"+ focus range on this closeup
Note the 30"+ focus range on this closeup...

a "drama" angle shot (not one of our best)
a "drama" angle shot (not one of our best)...

French horn (with a dirty whitecard upper left!)
French horn (with a dirty whitecard upper left!)...

brass mouthpieces can be a surprisingly tough shoot
brass mouthpieces can be a surprisingly tough shoo...

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Aug 22, 2012 08:25:45   #
Shylynn
 
Very nice!!!

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Oct 14, 2012 18:35:21   #
Scoutman Loc: Orlando, FL
 
jazzplayer wrote:
I know most studio photogs who do lots of "tabletop" shooting use pretty sophisticated flash/strobe lighting setups, but I think I managed to get an awful lot of quite passable shots using static lighting and long exposures, at my former place of employ...

Our usual setup for lighting consisted of just a pair of KinoFlo 400 (4x4' flourescent) daylight-spectrum video studio fixtures. Use of static lighting gave us the opportunity for some mighy zippy "assembly line" shooting, taking advantage of the "what you see through the viewfinder is what you get" aspect, and requiring extremely little in the way of exposure bracketing.

These pics were all shot with a Canon 1Ds, 28-200mm lens, ISO200, shutter ranging from 2.5 to 5sec., and usually one setting short of the smallest available aperture. Unfortunately I don't own the large originals, so exact camera data for each shot is unavailable. An interesting point of note is that the heavily criticized (and discontinued) 28-200mm lens seemed to be perfect for this particular shooting scenario.

Bear in mind that the quality standard we always had to meet was merely "good enough for the average shopper", and we always tried to adhere to a matter-of-fact portrayal. But after shooting this way for years, I have always wondered what critique these kinds of pics might receive from actual pro photographers, so let me have it!
I know most studio photogs who do lots of "ta... (show quote)


These are really nicely done. High key with horns. Be interesting to try them also with dark backgrounds, maybe velvet blue, black, or grey.

It may be just the way images end up appearing after they post here, but the two horn pictures look like they need just a little bit more separation from the top/bottom of the frame.

Your Avatar is great. I have the info somewhere on how it's done. Yours was probably the reason why I sought the how-to-do-it.

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Oct 14, 2012 19:57:05   #
jazzplayer
 
Scoutman wrote:
...
These are really nicely done. High key with horns. Be interesting to try them also with dark backgrounds, maybe velvet blue, black, or grey.

It may be just the way images end up appearing after they post here, but the two horn pictures look like they need just a little bit more separation from the top/bottom of the frame.
...


Scoutman - Thanks! I agree that the subjects could be more interesting shot with flavored backgrounds (& retaining those backgrounds), however our product shooting always called for complete clipping of backgrounds, usually for presentation on white print or web pages. Also, handling the clipped images like "clipart" implied that we didn't need any border area at all, hence the tightest-possible framing you see here, but wouldn't notice on a larger white page.

Shooting for clipping does have the really distinct advantage of not having to be very concerned about the actual backgound when shooting, though - makes it a LOT easier, in general...

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Oct 14, 2012 21:04:08   #
Scoutman Loc: Orlando, FL
 
jazzplayer wrote:
Scoutman wrote:
...
These are really nicely done. High key with horns. Be interesting to try them also with dark backgrounds, maybe velvet blue, black, or grey.

It may be just the way images end up appearing after they post here, but the two horn pictures look like they need just a little bit more separation from the top/bottom of the frame.
...


Scoutman - Thanks! I agree that the subjects could be more interesting shot with flavored backgrounds (& retaining those backgrounds), however our product shooting always called for complete clipping of backgrounds, usually for presentation on white print or web pages. Also, handling the clipped images like "clipart" implied that we didn't need any border area at all, hence the tightest-possible framing you see here, but wouldn't notice on a larger white page.

Shooting for clipping does have the really distinct advantage of not having to be very concerned about the actual backgound when shooting, though - makes it a LOT easier, in general...
quote=Scoutman ... br These are really nicely don... (show quote)


Good, clear explanation. Thank you.

Keep on $hooting....

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