DJO

Jerry is correct; setup is all important.

Product photography is not as easy as some may think. The learning curve can be very steep, and even once "mastered" (not sure if anything is truly mastered) there is still a lot of trial and error. My point is that film costs can become very large very quickly.

The camera I suggest is a Nikon D200. In the neighborhood of $2000.00 when introduced, used in good condition can now be had for had for around $200.00. Funny thing is, used D200 bodies fly off the shelf. For many good reasons.

The CCD sensor is well suited for long exposures. Color is excellent. White balance is extremely accurate. Ten MP is plenty for anything online; high ISO isn't a necessity. And that other thing- you can use ANY Nikon lens. You don't need (nor should you use) AF for product photography. Buy a VERY solid tripod. Used.

I would not suggest using daylight. Personally, I am finding it much more difficult to control the sun, the moon and the stars. Maybe that's just me. I have long since sold me expensive studio strobe equipment and now use CFLs with cheap clamp lamps from the home improvement store. Roscoe Tuff Lux for diffusion in front of the reflectors. Color temp. exactly the same, 24/7, 365. LEDs are becoming affordable, but max light output is still somewhat limited.

At one time all product photography was shot with tungsten light. Major problems? Enormous amount of heat, enormous amount of electricity. Problems no more.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The image is nicely composed, but on my calibrated monitor, it looks dark and purple. Did you put it in the sRGB color space?

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Both that image and the example by SS are significantly too dark, by a couple of fstops.

Carl D Loc: Albemarle, NC.

The Sony A7 would be a good choice.

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

A D200 is a good idea!

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

A D2X or D2XS would be a vastly better camera. All are from the same D2 generation from Nikon, but the D2X and D2XS were the flagship models and have all the pro bells and whistles. A D200 may run only $200, but even sometimes a D2X is only $200 and most of them go for under $300.

mr. u. n. owen

You all seem to be saying that art directors accept 35mm images for product photography or what is called full frame cameras . No wonder pro photographers are walking the streets when anything from anyone is accepted as the image to use . Boy digital cameras really did a number on the photo industry mainly down hill.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Have you looked at the UHH membership demographic?

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

no, but I would like to - where is it ??

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

That might be a question for big bird, but I would hazard a guess that it is heavily weighted towards older and retired individuals with a comfortable enough income / living situation to have some discretionary spending ability.

forjava Loc: Half Moon Bay, CA

“This is so helpful. My head is swimming with the choices. Please, more feedback and input!” OK, you asked. I was just minding my own business ;>) -- You know more about photography than I do but, again, you asked. Save my post and look at it again a year from now to review your progress. The marketplace is filled with short-cut photography products that will waste your money, make you late to market, damage your brand, and occasion your failure to rise to image excellence. And you’ll be making appointments with the chiropractor due to “twisting camera on tripod to hover over product. “

The short answer is, product photography is unforgiving, so you are at risk (p > 0.97) of wasting lots of time and then finally realizing you have failed to differentiate your images and have failed to make them sell against the brutal competition. I’ve read the craft sites and you can infer what I think about that from the following; I am pointing you to a cheaper, faster path, as will be clear only at the end of this post.

Your tabletop studio approach works. I mean having an elevated, dedicated surface for your subjects. Consider raising the table on four $1.25 cinder blocks, to minimize your bending. That’s the good news.

You will run into issues you never dreamed of and not know what you are up against. Perhaps as simple as dynamic range (given your subjects), light falloff (given your subjects) and speed of workflow (given your subjects). You may even have to learn how to plan the scene – why you want shadow, why it should fall forward rather than backward, and what tools enable this image attribute -- and so forth.

The serious response to your question entails lots of reading, starting with Hunter; a D810, Nikon's flagship for product photography -- intended for use with tethered live view (adios, tiny articulated screen), manual focusing, and a tripod with a cross arm for live view shoot-down shots; a hooded 85mm perspective-control lens, for tilt; one or two ~5500K strobes (not speedlights or continuous lights) for starters; and a range of light modifiers of all kinds, including a 77mm Nikon CPL filter, fittings on your strobes for cross polarization (See Hunter, again.); monitor calibration device (for color); base ISO 64; and a high-end light meter for measuring incident light for stills. That is not the whole story but it covers a good chunk of it in a single sentence, including your color concern.

Let me call attention to the remarks of BebuLamar on the 100mm lens for products. I have 105mms, zooms, and macros of various lengths; going to an 85mm 1:2 PC lens as suggested above will avoid a lot of wasted motion and you will end up there anyway. Likewise, consider the valuable, illustrated remarks of E. L. Shapiro and sharpshooter, above.

The photography world is full of true incomplete advice. For example, you have heard here that any DSLR will do for web images since they all have excess resolution. What you might not have heard is that product photography benefits from exceptional dynamic range of the sort seen in, say, a D810.

A fine point: most see polarization management as a way to address reflections. However, it improves contrast, on behalf of your color issue, even if your subject has metal exposed on its surfaces.

Can’t remember if I mentioned Hunter, falloff, and polarization but since you have reflections…and light is the priority, a low-cost starting point is to read Hunter several times. You’ll know when you are done with Hunter if you have developed an integrated point of view about shadows, depth, and reflections for your own products. Then you will be able to conceive your scenes. From there, you have a sound basis for choosing the enabling tools.

DJO

Sky-

In my opinion, people here are telling you to spend much more money than you need to. Product photography does not require a camera with a lot of bells and whistles. An articulated LCD is not a necessity. You're a beginner; you don't need to be tethered. If and when that need arrives, it doesn't have to be wireless. Learn the basics first.

Then again, some people have more money than they know what to do with.

jdubu Loc: San Jose, CA

I tend to agree with that. I would put my money into a good substantial working tripod that meets your needs and then learn about lighting and post processing.

Start simple and low cost, learn from your shooting and go from there. Here is a post where I shot wine bottles with a couple of under $50 LED lights and simple foam core.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-367013-1.html

In hindsight; I should have shot one frame with the foam core on the right closer to the bottle to bring the reflection all the way to the bottom of the bottle. Then masked out the board. Like I said, learning is ongoing and if I can accomplish what I need with inexpensive tools...

JPL

I think you would be very well situated with a Sony A5300, A6000 etc. or other similar mirrorless crop sensor cameras. Fuji, Olympus and some other manufacturers have some models too that fit the criteria. Those all are compact and easy to carry, you can use adapters to put any lens you want or need on them, they are easy to manual focus which can be important for product photography and they all have good sensors and high resolution and accurate colors. For your intended use I would prefer them to dslr. But most important for you is not the camera but the lighting and general setup.

I do not own any of those cameras I am recommending but have used a Sony A5300 for product photography. The products I was shooting with it were coins and miniature sculptures. It was easy to get good results with either the kit lens that came with it or with a lens of different brand attached with an adapter.