lcj2017 wrote:
Hello,
I own a small jewelry line and need to get my photos looking as professional as possible. Can you guys steer me in the right direction of where to get a decent white box and camera for taking photos? Do I really need a DSLR camera or no? Thanks so much!
No, you don't need a DSLR. A high quality point-n-shoot with macro capabilities should be more than sufficient. I would avoid any of those that use super small sensors, such as the tiny 1/2.3. I'd recommend you look for models that use larger 1" CMOS, such as the Canon G series. You don't need a super long, wide ranging zoom lens.... a short telephoto (35mm film/full frame camera equivalent to around 70 to 135mm) is great for tabletop studio shoots. On my DSLRs, I often use a couple prime lenses that are equiv. to 70mm and 90mm. For the smallest objects, I use macro lenses in the 90mm and 100mm (actual or equiv. range).
I would also want a camera that gives me full access to manual controls, has a hot shoe to connect flash or a flash controller, and is able to shoot RAW files (some are JPEG-only, which have less latitude for adjustment in post-processing). Anything from 10MP or larger would be fine.
A light tent or cube is one way to shoot small products. Personally I use a seamless white plastic sheet about 3 foot by 5 foot, that's flexible so I can set up a continuous curve background. I then light the product various ways.... sometimes just by window light (long exposure, camera on a tripod), perhaps with diffusers, bounce cards or reflectors to modify light or with black flags to block light. Here are several examples (soap products), lit only by ambient window light:
Notice the reflections on the plastic wrap in the first image. That was deliberate in that image... but to avoid it in other images I use a circular polarizing filter, so any camera you choose might need means of attaching a filter (not possible with all point-n-shoot cameras).
Jewelry and other objects that are highly reflective and have some transparent portions can be especially challenging.
Here's is one method of lighting a clear glass object... it's sitting on a transparent table and lit from below:
And here's another method.... a large soft box to the right mostly illuminates a white background (but only a 200W modeling light was used), while the goblet was set on a matte black surface and a matte black flag was positioned to the left:
Note: Some of the above examples were shot with 8MP DSLR. Most modern point-n-shoot offer at least 12MP and many are 16 to 20MP... more than enough resolution for large images and way, way more than enough for websites, catalogs, etc.
I use five monolights and a half dozen portable flash, along with a bunch of different light modifiers, stands, backgrounds, reflectors, etc.... some of which I've had for 10 or 15 years or longer.
But for studio work, if I were buying today I would seriously consider LED lighting that's available now.... especially for small products like jewelry.
LED lighting is continuous.... what you see is what you get. Much easier to work with, than flash where you have to try to pre-visual it's effect or use lower powered modeling lights to set it up. With continuous lighting, what you see is what you get! There are other forms of continuous light... But LED and fluorescent are "cool", while a lot of other types of continuous lights are "hot"... literally! Those can be unpleasant to work under or difficult to use for food products, etc.
For really large lights, I might opt for fluorescent instead because big LED panels are very expensive. However, for small products like jewelry, two or three small LED panels should be fine and are reasonably priced. Shop around!