Need help with consistent product photography

[dpinion]

Greetings everyone!

First an introduction. I am a rather amateur photographer from Georgia who has gotten the bug to shoot.. Since I started, someone at my company took notice and approached me about doing product photography images to be placed on our website and perhaps other media. This has blown up to me having my own room to shoot in and a trio of lights (although currently mine use 250w incandescent):



Basically a set of basic continuous lights. My setup is shown in the attached image. Pretty basic stuff.

Using a grey card, I have tried to get a consistent color/temperature to the photos, but they all still seem a little off from each other. Every computer that is photographed pretty much has all the same shots: Front/side/back/front with angle/top down

As you can see in the picture 2 of my lights are used to blow out the background, and I am using the third overhead and in front (not shown) to light the side of the computer closest to me.

What I need to know is how can I get things more consistent. First and foremost the color, but also how can I better set things up so that my shots will remain consistent from product to product? Also, any suggestions on getting even lighting across the product? Should I look at adding another light to illuminate the unit? I am currently using a Nikon D40 with the kit 18-55 lens (mine) but am in the works to have the company get their own camera, which they need for other things as well.

Regards

[i speak in math]

Originally Posted by dpinion

Greetings everyone!

First an introduction. I am a rather amateur photographer from Georgia who has gotten the bug to shoot.. Since I started, someone at my company took notice and approached me about doing product photography images to be placed on our website and perhaps other media. This has blown up to me having my own room to shoot in and a trio of lights (although currently mine use 250w incandescent):



Basically a set of basic continuous lights. My setup is shown in the attached image. Pretty basic stuff.

Using a grey card, I have tried to get a consistent color/temperature to the photos, but they all still seem a little off from each other. Every computer that is photographed pretty much has all the same shots: Front/side/back/front with angle/top down

As you can see in the picture 2 of my lights are used to blow out the background, and I am using the third overhead and in front (not shown) to light the side of the computer closest to me.

What I need to know is how can I get things more consistent. First and foremost the color, but also how can I better set things up so that my shots will remain consistent from product to product? Also, any suggestions on getting even lighting across the product? Should I look at adding another light to illuminate the unit? I am currently using a Nikon D40 with the kit 18-55 lens (mine) but am in the works to have the company get their own camera, which they need for other things as well.

Regards

If you are using a grey card, you should set it where the product will be, set a custom white balance based off of it and never touch WB again. Then you won't have any color shifts.

Make sure your are using matching color lights. If the lights are different colors, then you won't get a consistent color across the image. Make sure your exposure is based solely off your lights and that some alternate color ambient light isn't leaking in. For instance, you are shooting with tungsten lights but in a room with florescent lighting. The green from the florescent may sneak its way into the colors from the tungsten, throwing off the WB setting and colors of the image

For the shot you provided, while obviously for illustrative purposes only, requires me to comment. Looks like you have a shiny front on that thing. You are capturing your reflection or the reflection of the room in the front shiny part. Give the book, "light, science, magic" a read, or look up lighting specular reflections. Mastering this will really give your images a pop that will make it look very pro.

[dpinion]

Greetings,
Sorry for the late reply, but somehow i missed your reply until now. You are correct in that the shot I used was simply a test and I wasn't trying to avoid the reflections. However, I tried searching for lighting specular reflections and couldn't find much on how to deal with it. I now think I understand what it is though.. I will give your book suggestion a read as I want/need to improve on my shots. I don't think they are terrible now, but as most of us say, it could be better..

[edbayani]

this is just a suggestion, put a black piece of light board, painted matte black, cut a hole for the lens to shoot to remove the reflections. if you want specular highlights on some areas, use a white reflector above the product, move it to get the best results. this works well with shiny black products.
also follow i speak in math advice on the similarity of the three bulbs color temperature and no light leaking from the outside.