Product Photography Equipment and Process- An Essential Guide

If you really want to boost conversions pay attention to your product photography equipment — get everything you need right in this post.

Product Photography Equipment

Product photography is the best way to make your website super cool as well as highly functional in motivating customer sales. Just think about your most recent online purchases… were the product photos pretty good, did the website utilize a 360 product viewer.

Most people make emotional purchases, and if your product’s pictures can linger in the memories of viewers, you will increase your sales. Great product photography is your best conversion asset!

To successfully carry out product photography, you need the right kind of equipment as well as a well-defined process.

●    Camera Equipment

To take mind-blowing pictures, you, of course, need to invest in a really good camera. Good examples include DSLRs or Mirrorless systems. By simply having the right camera equipment, you place yourself far ahead of the pack with regards to product photography. Nonetheless, you could still use your phone camera to take these pictures.

When it comes to digital cameras, my personal preference is Canon and here is my list in order of how I would select them:

 

1. Canon Rebel SL2 / EOS 200D

Best all-round: Canon’s smallest DSLR blends versatility and value

Type: DSLR | Sensor: APS-C | Megapixels: 24.2MP | Lens mount: Canon EF-S | Screen: 3.0in touch, pivot 1,040,000 dots | Viewfinder: Pentamirror | Max burst speed: 5fps | Max video resolution: 1080p | User level: Beginner/intermediate

●    Lenses

Your choice of the lens also matters a great deal in product photography, as the lens you choose would affect your field of view, the depth of the field as well as the distance between objects. For macro photography, a 100mm lens would be excellent, nifty fifty lenses work well in conditions with rather low lighting. If you’ve got a standard zoom lens, it grants you a wide range of versatility and you’re able to enjoy different fields of view while maintaining the same lens.

●    Tripods

Need some degree of stability to help in your image capturing process? The right tripod will help achieve this, giving you room to take several pictures from different angles. These angles matter; for establishing strength and exuding emotion in pictures.

●    Color Checkers

The color checking process is one that’s highly specific and detailed. What you want is either for these colors to work together (complementing one another) or to create a firm contrast.

●    Product Photography Accessories

The necessary accessories for your product photography role are highly dependent on the products you’d want to photograph.

For example, if you want to hang your products, you might need a fishing line. To keep your clothes standing in a position, you could make use of safety pins.

●    Need a Mini Studio Box?

Mini studio boxes are super cool if you don’t have enough space or a budget to use a real studio.

Some of these boxes even come with their own lighting systems, which means you wouldn’t have to order for a lighting system separately. Usually, mini studio boxes are excellent at capturing natural lights and flash units. They also enable the light to hit products at the perfect angles, taking out harsh shadows.

●    Using a Wireless Flash Trigger

You might need this instrument to help you control an off-camera flash.

A wireless flash trigger is absolutely perfect when using a flash on your camera would do more harm than good.

●    Lighting Equipment

Lighting is no doubt, an important part of product photography. While the use of natural light is the way to go, sometimes it just isn’t enough. Several studios have powerful lighting units, plugged into the wall. There are also smaller types i.e. Speed-lights, which run with an AA battery power.

Regardless of which type of lighting equipment you choose, let it be one which serves the purpose of taking excellent photographs of your products.

Conclusion

Product photography is so much more than part of a product listing — it’s what sells the product. These photographs might, in fact, be the first form of contact potential buyers would have with your products. This means you have to get it right — which is why you should invest in the right kind of equipment as well as the process of product photography.

You would be amazed at the kind of eCommerce results you’d get!