I do a lot of product work and getting the lighting right is always a challenge because different types of objects will reflect light differently. A very dark object may need a lot more light on it to pull out the detail where a shiny object may cause you all kinds of grief with reflections. Often, getting things just right is just a matter of trial and error, but starting with a decent setup can save you tons of work later. Today we will dissect a recent product shoot and see why I decided to use flash heads.

A photographic umbrella (known as a brolly in some places) is exactly what it sounds like, just like the umbrella you would use in the rain except these are designed to bounce, reflect, or soften a light source. There are two basic types of umbrellas, bounce and shoot thru. A bounce umbrella is one that you aim the light into and bounce back towards the subject and a shoot thru umbrella is where the light is aimed at the subject through the umbrella making the umbrella act like a large softbox.

What is a snoot? Simply put, a snoot is a tubular structure that is used to limit the throw of a light source to create a narrow beam of light. While commercial snoots are actually pretty affordable, from $14 to about $20, so why would we want to make our own? Because we know what we want and because for $20 we can make a dozen or more experimental ones and end up with a handful that we could use in different situations. So guys. go break into the wife’s scrapbooking supplies and get ready to make your own customized flash snoot.

We had to do another photo shoot today and we really pulled out all the stops with the new gear we have around. As you can see, this is a very typical product shot on a white background for use on a web page or in a magazine. In the past, we have shown some techniques with hot lights, so today we are going to use some flash units.

We always take our own product shots, while manufacturer shots are usually very nice, they often can be retouched to make products look better than they really are. With the product shots for our articles, the only retouching may be to remove some stray dust.

David Berman is a British news photographer and has posted a narrated slideshow showing some recent assignments with the final photos and then diagrams detailed the lighting setups he used. This is great information to learn how really dramatic photos can be taken. What is nice is that he doesn’t rely on a truckload of equipment, often its just one or two lights with umbrellas (brollys), reflectors, or gells.

Natural light can be your friend or your enemy depending on how you approach it. The biggest mistake people make is thinking that the sun is a giant soft light in the sky. While the Sun is over 92 million miles away, if you hold your thumb up to the sun at high noon, it appears to only be the size of your thumbnail making it a VERY small spotlight which causes very harsh shadows.

The most common mistake in doing a portrait is to use an on-camera flash. While an on-camera flash will illuminate a subject well, the direct head-on light will wash out all the shadows making the face look flat. So our first rule is to have the key light off to the side of the subject’s face.

As I have said before, I am a huge fan of saving money where ever and whenever you can…..if it makes sense. Let’s talk about lighting and why doing this on the cheap is so hard. Lightbulbs suck. There, I said it, plain and simple. I have tried probably 20 different lightbulbs this past year, bright white, daylight, you name it, if it claimed to be some form of daylight bulb, I have tried it. The end result of over $100 in light bulb purchases this year? Cheap daylight bulbs all over the house, and the purchase of decent studio lights. Why didn’t these lights work?

I basically started off my photography journey doing product shots for some hobby websites I had. I was competing against big print magazines so I always strived to come up with product shots that were as good or better than what the big guys were doing.