When you have a product and you want to market it, one aspect of the process that you’ll need to do is product photography where you would need to take professional shots of that product. Now usually you would have to pay a lot of money for product photography to get perfect shots of your product that you would be using later in your marketing communications including promotion, public relations, advertising, social media and so on.

However, if you don’t have the budget then you can do this yourself, even with your phone, you just need to keep a few things in mind to get the polished output that you want that your customers wouldn’t even be able to tell that the shots were taken with a phone, leaving them with a great impression about your brand.

So without further ado, here are a few product photography tips to keep in mind.

Product Photography Tips

Simple Backdrop

You’ll need a seamless white background to shoot your product on. Now this can be anything from a simple sheet of paper or poster board to a white cardboard sheet, depending on the size of your product.

You can set it up by having it curved and clipped on to a chair, wall or any surface that you have. Just make sure that it’s big enough for your product and that it’s not wrinkled or has any spots or defects.

Get Outside

Take your product photography outdoors. You don’t need expensive lighting, natural light is your best friend. Just make sure that you pick a spot that is not in direct sunlight, as this can ruin your shot. It’s best if it’s in open shade or if the area where you’re set up is shaded by a large building or something similar.

Camera

It doesn’t matter whether you use a professional camera or even a phone as long as it’s of good quality, and by good quality we don’t mean anything above and beyond, an iPhone or any smart phone with a good camera will do. Of course if you have any additional equipment (e.g. tripod, flash, lights, …etc.), they can help improve your picture but they’re definitely not a must.

Make sure to also try and experiment with different add-on lenses that can be extremely helpful and can drastically change the outcome of your photos.

Fill The Frame

When you have everything set up, place your product in the middle, making sure that the product along with the background both fill the frame. If not, then you might need a bigger background to not show anything behind it.

If a little bit of the background behind your sheet shows, that might not be a big problem as you can edit it later on using any photo-editing software but it’s preferred to avoid that kind of situation in the first place. However, for a small to medium-sized product, the process should be fairly easy.

More Is More

The important thing to realize is that this is good for a simple basic setup. Obviously if the shot that you need requires more sophisticated lighting or setup, then it might not be a bad idea to actually spend a few more bucks, and hire a professional photographer who can do a really good job.

However, this is great if you have products that you make yourself and you just need quick shots that show off well against a simple backdrop then this is a really easy way that you can do yourself.

Bonus: Box It Up

Another product photography trick you can use is to get or create a white box (or any box for that matter that you can turn white by covering the sides with pieces of paper), and open it from one side, which will give you the illusion of having a white room as shown in the illustration below. From there you can place your product inside it and photograph it as necessary.

You can also make an opening at the top of the box to allow natural light in or if you’re doing this indoors, you can add your own light as necessary which will give it a nice illumination on all sides.

Again, this a way to do a quick and easy DIY (do it yourself) setup if you need a simple product shot. These are all things you can do to mimic a studio look and feel in terms of product photography without going broke in the process because you don’t necessarily need a real elaborate setup. You can get by with some simple inexpensive materials and the shots will end up looking pretty good.