When someone says “I can take pro-level product-ad photos with my iPhone”, and I smile politely and tell them “I’m sure you can.” Yeah, this is how we do it for reals. Note the camera is literally overhead, 180mm macro set at f20 for tack-sharp 24MPixel images. Click through the images here and below, and prepare to be amazed.
You might be wondering why you can’t you see those (horrendous) red walls in the reflections of other photos. It’s because the strobes are throwing about 400 watt-seconds (Ws) of light at the table, completely swamping any light coming from external sources, including reflected light. When you capture that with tiny apertures, the exposure sits right in the middle, but the walls and exterior lights are something like 8-10 stops below the main lights. Studio, baby!
To put the resolution bluntly, the horizontal ruler has 0.01″ graduations, and you can easily see the variations in the 0.01″ lines. Notice how it’s completely in focus across the entire photo? As in, Clearly. In Focus. It’s kinda scary, really.
These three were taken not from overhead, but about 9 feet away. Gotta get proper depth-of-field. Click to see those gorgeous high-resolution images. I especially like the black one, where highlights model the shape, but are not themselves actually overblown. Such delicate lighting control. Thank you as always, Elinchrom.
In general, I’ll make the high-resolution photos available wherever feasible. On the page, however, I’ll show that same image at lower resolution, for (hopefully) faster loading-time. Internet latency being a complicated thing, after all.
Studio technical photography, especially of products, is something I do really enjoy. Hyoomans never sit still long enough, however, as some shoots can last a week and require over 500 captures to get “The One”.
Regards,
Rando