Where do I find stock photography I can use on a Shopify theme?

Question

I am working on a theme for Shopify, but they require that you provide some stock images inside your theme to demonstrate how your theme would work in a 'realistic' context.

The types of images that I'm looking for are product shots, and I need a set of images. For sake of continuity in design, they should all be taken within a similar context or style.

Is there such a resource?

Asked by Victor S

Answer

I would recommend using any stock site which provides galleries by the same photographer.

For example, ShutterStock and iStockPhoto allow you to browse other images by photographer. Just search for a single product shot, and then look at the photographer's portfolio for similar shots.

Alternatively, check the collections features which allow photographers and customers to collate similar images.

Answered by Maynard Case

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How to photograph glass without reflections and shadows?

Question

I'm working on Image processing issue and I need to take picture from automotive glass.the camera is mounted at top and the glass lays down at the bottom. I put a black textile at the back of glass . the main problem is how can I cancel reflection of camera image into the glass? how should I light the object to give best result and have no shadow and reflection of near objects? thanks

Asked by Farzad Sagharchi

Answer

When you have a reflective surface like glass, the angle of incidence of the light equals the angle of reflection. So if the light comes from 45 degrees from the right, it will reflect back 45 to the left. If it's directly over the glass, it will reflect straight back (at the camera then).

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reflection_angles.svg

So you want your lights far enough to the sides that you cannot see that reflection (I'd use at least two lights, one on either side). In the figure below, if P is your light source, the light will reflect off the glass to Q. If the camera is in the middle (where it says "normal") it will not see the glare of the reflection (this assume a narrow beam of light- with larger lights, rather than one narrow line between P and Q there is a much wider band of light.

In order to remove the reflection of your camera, as James Youngman said, a polarising filter will reduce it. To eliminate it you want to do one (or both) of two things:

• Move the camera slightly off-axis if you can, so that it's not exactly overhead. Using the same angle of incidence/reflection, the reflection of the camera will not come straight back up into the camera. Like moving to the side of a mirror until you can't see your reflection. This can cause perspective problems however

• The other solution is do this work in a dark place. Illuminate your subject with lights that have grids, snoots, or barn doors to focus the light on the subject, so that your camera does not get light on it. If it is in the dark it will be invisible. You can use black cards or fabric to keep the light from illuminating the camera.

• You could also fashion a black board with a hole in it for your lens. Stick the lens through and take your photos. The reflection will then be of a black surface with a small, dark round hole, which may not show up, or can more easily be edited out in post processing

A good source for all of this is the book Light, Science and Magic

Answered by MikeW

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How to do lighting for product photography of scrapbooking stuff?

Question

I have tried to do some simple product photographing. It is mainly some scrapbooking stuff my wife has produced, like candles and gift cards. Up until now I have been using my Nikon SB-700 for lighting. I bounce the light in the ceiling and I find the light to be rather even. However my wife is not satisfied :(

She wants it to look like this. How do I achieve this result? I have been reading some books and searching the Internet, but still I have not found any good answer to my questions.

I have found a lot of rather cheap lighning kit for product photographing. These usually include some kind of table and some halogen lights. This seems like a good choice. What confuses me is that sometimes there are some cheap studio flash kits that is said to work for product photographing and portraits. So I was thinking; why not use my studio flash with a softbox? It has a color temperature around 5600° Kelvin. I have also found some light bulbs that has a color temperature around 5500° Kelvin. Could I use a couple of them? These cost around $20 each.

All the articles I have been reading explains a lot of color temperatures and little bit on how to setup the lightning. However they do not motivate why.

Could you please help me to sort the things out?

Answer

Product photography requires some way of isolating the subject completely within the shot, and even lighting. For this reason I think you would find a light tent extremely useful.

A light tent has two advantages. Firstly, the translucent sides allow you to use virtually any light source (even, in a pinch, regular household lamps) as they diffuse the light evenly across the subject. Halogen lamps aren't essential by any means.

Secondly, the curved backcloth gives an 'infinity curve' effect to the photo - in other words, you can't see where the bottom ends and the back starts, isolating the subject nicely.

Prices vary by size and location, but they will rarely cost more than $30/€25. If you're on a tight budget, you can even make your own using a cardboard box and cooking paper.

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How can I capture both sparkle and detail when photographing jewelry?

Question

I have some shiny stone studded bangles and diamond rings.
I want to capture both the "sparkle" as well as the "fine details" of the rings and the bangles at the same time.

The problem is that to get the sparkle, I raise the shutter speed which darkens the total scene, and thanks to the zoom lens the aperture can't be lowered beyond 5.6 (in my point and shoot camera with noisy ISO).

In overall, it gets all dark.

How to photograph sparkling jewelery? Which lights to use in which way?

Even if I get a 1.4F prime lens will that be enough? Or is there some factor which needs to be taken care of?

Also, I want the fine details of the ring design preserved, so won't 1.4F be a problem?

Answer

• You'll want some depth of field, so I wouldn't consider an f/1.4 lens. You'll probably want f/8 or f/11 anyway to get the entire item in focus.

• Camera on a tripod for maximum sharpness and to allow for longer exposures if required.

• Diffuse light from both sides - use a light tent, softboxes, or bounce flash off large white boards/reflectors to provide the main light which should be nice and even

• For a little sparkle, have a small light/flash near the camera (just above or a little to one side) This will produce a "hard" light that will reflect back at the camera.

• It's common to use something like a 70-200mm zoom for product and food photography, but a 50mm can do the job

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How do I properly do shadowless product photos?

Question

My friend asked me to create a photo like this. I noticed that its shadowless and my first question is whether it was setup to be shadowless, or was it made shadowless in post? How many lights are involved here? I think there's one for the background, and one above the product pointing something like 30 degrees down, and then some reflectors to the side. Just guessing.

I did some Googling and came across this setup. How could that be shadowless? Looks like the product is a few feet above the ground, which is a white seamless background, and the camera and all the lighting are all pointing down. How could there be no shadow on the ground?

Thanks!

Answer

Also on Digital Photography School, Alex Koloskov walks through creating attractive product photos. And in his blog he shows how to achieve almost the same results with $55 light setup. His blog in general is very educative, as he's professional product photographer who regularly shares the setups used to get the results he got.

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What are the best resources for Indoor Product Photography?

Question

I would like to know if there any good online resources for indoor product photography ?

Preferably with a Table Top setup.

Im looking for commercial grade product photography tutorials/resources.

I would like to add that I already own a Tabletop setup. It includes 3 Lights, a Cube box where the product is placed etc. I would be using a Nikon D90 camera.

Answer

The book Light Science and Magic is just about the best resource on product photography for beginners. It's about lighting in general but it's written by a product photographer and most of the material and importantly the examples relates to indoor small product photography (there's a bit on portraits later on).

It's very easy to read yet in covers the vast majority of product shoots you're likely to come across, starting from basic principals (inverse square law, hard and soft light, specular and diffuse reflections) and then goes through each type of material (metal, glass, etc.) in turn, including a section on troubleshooting and emergency techniques for really difficult subjects.

The second edition is available on Google books so you can get a taste:

http://books.google.com/books?id=7NKCEt0-qlUC&dq=light+science+and+magic&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=qxwqp00iGE&sig=UkfVy9dJeJwIc3YiijdhD0pRAis#v=onepage&q&f=false

If you've got a spare $30 I'd highly recommend picking up a hard copy of the third edition.

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How do I photograph coins with a glossy surface?

Question

I am trying to photograph my coin sets. The coins are encased in a postcard-sized glossy paper that acts as mirror.

I need to position my camera exactly on top of the card coin set. Unfortunately, when I do this, my reflection is seen on the glossy paper and also get captured in the image. The reflection vanishes if I move the camera too close to the card, but then I need a lens with a closer focal point.

What is the suggested way to take pictures of a glossy surface, avoiding the reflection on the surface?

Answer

The coin reflects light. With a light shining straight on it, much of it may be reflected straight back at the camera:

The first thing to do is move the light to the side and put a dark object where it used to be. The dark object is now reflected in the coin, but that's not noticeable:

There are still many specular highlights on the relief and lettering, reflections of the light and of other bright objects in the vicinity. Minimize those by surrounding yourself with a flat, black environment. This last photo was taken from above with a black cloth draped over photographer and camera:

(All three images are of the same coin. Some noise reduction was applied, but no contrast enhancement was performed in any of them. The softness in this last image is because there was much less light to illuminate the coin: because these images were handheld, this required a high ISO and large aperture. For good work you will use a tripod, of course, allowing a smaller aperture and low ISO, because a long exposure is no problem.)

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How do I work with ice and a glass bottle for a product shoot?

Question

I have a bottle of vodka that I want to have the effect of being frozen with shards of ice on it.

If I lived in Alaska where I could leave it outside and drip water over the top every hour or so, that would be ideal. But I don't. I'm trying to figure out a way to use my freezer for this effect, and my question is how best to do this.

I need to keep the water on the bottle, so it will freeze to it. I've thought about a ziplock bag, which I'd peel off after it's frozen... then perhaps chisel away the ice so it doesn't look like it was in a bag (sharp edges, etc.).

Or, to do it so it looks like an ice cube with the bottle in the middle. For that, I was thinking to fill a baking dish and freeze it in that, and then heat the back side to release it from the baking dish. Has anyone done something like this and does anyone have advice or tips?

I'm thinking of everything in my mind and want to try the least amounts of times for fear of impacting the frosted look on the bottle.

Answer

I don't know how the kids are doing it these days, but in my day we used acrylic resin (available by the bucket in larger craft shops) for "ice" and clear Krylon (misted with water from a plant mister when necessary) for "frost".

Unlike food maquettes (such as using coloured Crisco and icing sugar for "ice cream") you aren't breaking any truth in advertising laws, and the "ice" will survive the lighting and staging process. Real ice poses a lot of problems. There is a relatively narrow range of temperatures in which it looks right (too cold and it lacks gloss, too warm and it melts too quickly), it takes textured fingerprints (or gloveprints) that you're forever having to torch out (while carefully trying to avoid soot deposits -- which can never be removed completely, and therefore mean starting over again).

In the end, the fake stuff usually looks more believable than the real.

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How to do the ghost mannequin effect?

Question

I'm looking into taking some product photography and I would like to get the ghost mannequin effect, but I can't find any proper documentation.

Something a bit like this:

Can you please give a stepped process (ie 1,2,3) (don't need too many details) .

Thanks for any advice.

Answer

I would start with this question "How to properly do shadowless product photos". Once you have that down, the only real differences for this type of photography is the mannequin that you are going to add in. You have two options, you can add in a mannequin, and shoot multiple shots with pieces of the mannequin missing and not missing(ie neck). Then you would have to combine the shots later in post production. Or you can create a wire frame that supports the clothing and allows any pieces showing to be easily photoshopped out.

Basically, you have to be creative, there is no golden rule on how to do this easily or quickly. You will have to do things before shooting as well as in post to get this effect, and it will take a bit of effort to do especially if you are trying to shoot an entire catalog.

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How to properly do shadowless product photos?

Question

My friend asked me to create a photo like this. I noticed that its shadowless and my first question is whether it was setup to be shadowless, or was it made shadowless in post? How many lights are involved here? I think there's one for the background, and one above the product pointing something like 30 degrees down, and then some reflectors to the side. Just guessing.

I did some Googling and came across this setup. How could that be shadowless? Looks like the product is a few feet above the ground, which is a white seamless background, and the camera and all the lighting are all pointing down. How could there be no shadow on the ground?

Thanks!

Answer

Also on Digital Photography School, Alex Koloskov walks through creating attractive product photos. And in his blog he shows how to achieve almost the same results with $55 light setup. His blog in general is very educative, as he's professional product photographer who regularly shares the setups used to get the results he got.

Check more discussion of this question.

What is the best approch to photographing a mirror or other highly reflective surface?

Question

I have been asked by a client to take some product photographs of some vintage mirrors that they would like to sell and I am struggling with getting good clear shots of the mirrors. As such, what is the best way to approach photographing them such the mirror does not appear to be washed out or contain any unwanted reflections?

Answer

As Rob said, a tilt-shift lens is ideal.

I talked to a product photographer who specifically mentioned it's use. Basically, you position the camera on a tripod just to the left or right of the mirror so it's out of the reflection. With a normal lens it will be obvious that it's taken at an angle but by using the shift function of the lens you're able to correct the perspective distortion (just like an architectural photographer) so it looks as if the photo was taken head-on.

This article has an example shot: http://www.popphoto.com/how-to/2011/05/complete-guide-to-tiltshift-photography?page=0,3

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