product photography setup advice

Hi everyone:

I searched the forum and didn't find anything relevant on my problem so any advice is appreciated. I've learned so much from this forum!

Background: I do product photography for my firm, and my boss has asked me to set up a studio for this. I have done this type of photography for years, so no problems there, but always using a gerry-rigged set up (you should see some of the contraptions I've used for holding up product!)

I'm a capable photographer and very good at pp, but when he asked me to set it up I realised, on thinking, that I really don't know what constitutes a good studio - I've become used to making do with what we have.

I have a 10' x 20' space to work with. We currently have 2 umbrella lights, a long table against the wall and a seamless paper holder that I use to hang products with percing away from the wall to avoid shadows and make pp faster.

I photograph clocks and photo frames, lots of flat glass, and tabletop stuff that can get up to 40" in size so I need to avoid reflections (which I currently do by means of a 3' x 3' black board with cutout for the lens that I hang off the lens with camera on a tripod. I end up holding black paper on the sides to blot out reflections - need three arms sometimes!

The primary need is a board for the front of the camera, with a long slit to adjust the camera height, that comes with interchangeable black and white cloths. It would have to be about 48" wide by 7' tall to block out reflections, and be portable for putting away when not needed. Also obvoiuosly needs to be freestanding.

Is there such a thing on the market for this or do I have to make it myself?
Also, would a circular polariser help?

Long-winded post, and thanks for reading, any suggestions?

Hi,

I think you'll find most studio shooting involves some gerry rigging, more or less depending upon what's being shot... so I wouldn't worry about that at all. A lot of studio photographers are very creative DIYers!

Yes, a circular polarizer would help you control reflections to some degree. You probably won't want to eliminate them completely, but just control them. You should experiment with a CPL.

You also can polarize a light source... I've not done that myself, so you'd have to look into it for more info. Polarizing filters come in sheets, for this purpose. There's a process called cross-polarization, too, if memory serves, that combines polarizing the light source and shooting through a polarizing filter.

A Tilt-Shift lens can allow you to keep yourself and the gear out of surface reflections, too.

You mention using umbrellas, too. I'm assuming you are bouncing out of them (some umbrellas allow you to shoot through them, acting as a diffuser, but most are designed to bounce the light and that's the most common way to use them). You'd find it's quite different to use direct lighting, such as a diffuse soft box, or combination of soft boxes, which come in many different sizes and shapes.

With reflective objects and glass, there are two approaches: subtractive and additive I've heard it called, using black flags such as you are doing is subrtractive, vs larger white soft boxes that add a reflection and give transparent objects shape. Sometimes a combination of the two might be used.

I assume, too, that the umbrella lights are using some form of strobe.... a monolight or other high output studio flash. You might want to look into "cool lights". Those are continuous lights, but not the tungsten (etc.) "hot lights" of olden days, that are pretty miserable to work with. Cool lights use a compact fluorescent bulb that's stabilized and color balanced. They've come way, way down in price and are pretty practical now. You can use about one third the wattage needed with a strobe or hot light. And, as the name implies, they don't give off nearly as much heat. It can be easier to set up and work with continuous lighting, than with strobes. But, if you feel comfortable with strobes, then there's no reason to stop using them.

It's pretty much the standard though, for there to be a lot of gerry rigging and custom setups in studios. You'll probably have to continue to use what you do to support the products: clay, bottle caps, toothpicks, whatever works... that's what most people use. You might rig an overhead truss of some sort, that you can hook or tie things to, hang them with monofilament line, then retouch it out in PP.

Look for some books on studio/product photography. I'm sure there are dozens more ideas that you might find useful. I don't currently have a studio space and haven't been doing much of that type work lately, personally.

Thanks for the comprehensive answer amfoto - I forgot to mention that I am using the cool continuous lights - conditions prohibit strobing and a lot of equipment (flags, softboxes, etc) so I'm limited in the amount of equipment I can use (I would love to learn lighting on the boss's dime, lol).

The tilt-shift sounds yummy, but not an option for this job.

I know there's a lot of gerry-rigging in product photography, but nice to have it confirmed that each product will bring it's own requirements.

The polarized light source sounds interesting - I will look into that, and I'll see if a polariser on the lens helps as well.

So I guess I will be doing some DIY... if it turns out well, I'll post the results.

Thanks again.