The Watford Photographer @phototravelblog

Here we go...
This week with MJL Photographics we take a look at some Chic and stylish product photography.

Michael was contacted by Alexia de Boynes from 'MyBagHanger' to produce some high key high quality photography with their products.

My Bag Hanger offers a wide range of Handbag hooks to hang handbags to most tables and desks in order to keep them off the dirty floor.
My Bag Hanger also offers to customise its handbag hooks with any corporate logo to use as promotional gifts.

So Why Where We There?
Michael explained that the idea behind the shoot was to really show off the product with high quality high key lighting. The combined effect of rich reflections and dreamy background blur produces a chic and stylish effect. The product needed to be clean with smooth even reflections and sharp details. The reason they needed to be sharp is that additional logos were going to be dropped in with Photoshop at a later date.Michael explained that the idea behind the shoot was to really show off the product with high quality high key lighting. With rich reflections and dreamy background blur produces chic and stylish images.

Technique Time
In terms of technique the three most important aspects for this shoot were going to be good lighting, product sharpness and soft background blur.

Product in action ;
Setting up the two styles of product in action with a glass table and bag was the first shot. Michael managed to obtain a small glass table with darkened glass and chrome legs that was perfect for the look he was going for. After playing around with various

positions it was decided that a 45 degree angle looking slightly down produced the best effect. In terms of lighting a large softbox with a 150 watt flashead was used above at a 45 degree angle facing the table and product on ¾ power.  A flashgun with a snoot and diffuser was used to light the product on 1/4 power. White reflector boards were used beneath and to the side of the bag to brighten up the handle that was not receiving as much light because of the darkened glass. There was also some great natural lighting from behind where the shoot  was taking place coming through a very large window.

Camera settings ;
With a middle sized setup of products but a small central product being showcased a fair amount of cropping in shot was required. This enabled the quality and dpi of the final image to remain high with no post process cropping. I used a mixture of a Canon 50mm f1.4 and Canon 100mm f2 with 12mm lens tube. To trigger the 

 flashgun and flash head some new on the market Phottix triggers which worked great! The camera body was mounted on a manfrotto tripod with a trigger release cable and linked to a laptop with canon software so the images could be reviewed instantaneously.

To get some pleasing background blur the 50mm lens was used between f2.8 and f3.5, this allows the product to remain sharp but have some dreamy out of focus background detail. The 100mm was used between f2.8 an f8 mainly for the straight on white background shots that were up next.

Products on a white background
With any products that are being used for web or catalogue a majority of the time a pure white background is needed. The key here is to light your product first then take a light reading with a  light meter. Then over expose the background by two stops, this ensures a pure white background 99% of the time.

Having the products setup on a Perspex tray table enables the light from the pure white background to show through so you end up with a product that looks like it is floating. However on some of the shots a shadow and non pure white background was required.

For the main white background no shadow shots a paper roll background was setup using a 150watt flash head and standard dish. The product was setup on an angled Perspex tray which allows for the background to be seen and the camera to get a good angle. A further flash head was used above the product and a flashgun for fill flash .

Be Creative
Another set of shots that were required were images of the soft cases for the products. Here a non pure white background was required. Here reducing the lighting intensity for the background works well so that the lighting is unifom and doesn't have any fall off at the edges.

The key here is to experiment and be creative until you get the right balance between the product and background. This is especially important when the product itself is white or grey. I'm sure you will agree the finished result worked very well!

And Thats a Wrap!
Thank you all for reading, as usual any techniques found in this article can be found in our 'Technique time' section including your guide to equipment and lens choice. Please take a moment to checkout 'MyBagHanger' the brilliant client who supplied the products for this shoot. See you next time.

Here we go....
With England half on fire, police everywhere and the weather pretty miserable most people have locked themselves away indoors. This week at MJL Photographics brought to you by The Watford Photographer we were no exception.  MJL Photographics specialise in all sorts of product photography but we have to say this was one of the more unusual job requests.

Michael met with the Business Managing Director Jackie Gilmore at her home just outside Watford. The business is called Doggie Macs Ltd and they make high quality unique style Doggie Coats! For full business details please see the end of the article and don't forget to check out our LINKS page!

So why were we there?
Michael explained that the client required multiple images on all products, from different angles to potentially different background colours. Most of the products were the same colour and material but with different coloured piping and stitching. The client had specially purchased some 'Doggiequins' (mannequins but dogs not people) from the U.S, these were extremely effective in showcasing the products and giving them that 'new studio shoot feel'.

Technique Time (each photo has the technical data from the shot)
Firstly Michael needed to setup his Lastolite cubelite. This is an excellent piece of kit for product photography as it allows you to control light from up to six angles to ensure you are correctly lighting the product and getting a pure white background.

All light sources were matched with a light meter so that they were equally lighting the product and providing a nice pure white background.

The lighting was setup as follows :

• Large softbox on top of the product using a 150w flash head.
• Flash gun matched to half power underneath the product with diffuser.
• 150w Flash heads on the left and right side both setup with softboxes to match other light sources on 1/2 power.
• 2 x constant light heads with pure white 5500k bulbs and beauty dishes facing the right and left front edges of the cubelite tent for some depth.

Camera and White Balance
The camera was setup on a tripod using a Interfit infra red flash sync. We know a lot of people don't like these but they are incredibly cheap and easy to use. For indoor close proximity product photography they are perfect and  personally we have never had any issues. So if you are on a budget give them a try. If Michael shoots products outdoors then they are no good as range is limited and the infra red is affected by the sunlight. He then uses wireless pocket wizards or similar but these are a heck of a lot more expensive.

The other thing you must always do when shooting any products or portraits for that matter is set your white balance. This allows for accurate colour balance and reduces post production time or colour match errors! Its very simple to do this and you can do it in two ways dependant on your camera.

Technique 1 :
If your camera has a 'custom white balance' setting its very easy.
1. Set your lighting how you want it and set your white balance to Auto 'AWB'.
2. Get a white balance grey card (£10-£15 amazon) and place it where you product will be, ensuring it is receiving even lighting.
3. Take a photo of the grey card.
4. Set your white balance to 'custom white balance'  and choose the image you just took of the grey card.


Technique 2 :
If your camera has no custom white balance setting.
1. Set your camera to AWB.
2. Take a photo of your grey card.
3. Keep that photo for after you have taken all of your product photos. 
4. In photoshop RAW (as per above image) open all your pictures and click 'Select All' then 'synchronise'.
5.Check white balance and any other settings you want to sync at this stage.
6. Find the image of the grey card you took and click on the white balance dropper as above.
7. Move the dropper on to the grey card image and click on the centre of the image. All images will now be setup with correct white balance.

And that's a Wrap!
I hope you have found this weeks article interesting and informative. As always we will add more technique information and advice from today's article in our 'Technique Time' section. Why not check out the HDR techniques from last week's shoot?

A Big Thank You to Michael and MJL Photographics for the wonderful images and to Jackie Gilmore of Doggie Macs Ltd who are a great company offering a superb service and fantastic products. The company details can be found below as well as on our Links page so please spare a minute to check them out.

Please feel free to get in contact with any comments or questions.

See you in a few weeks back with the Watford Photographer!

Contact / Location
http://www.doggiemacs.com/
Telephone: 020 8906 6632
E-mail:
 jackie@doggiemacs.com
 enquiries@doggiemacs.com
 sales@doggiemacs.com