What is product photography?
Ecommerce product photography is a popular part of the subindustry of e-commerce, which deals with manufacturing good quality commercially adjustable images of products to represent certain products online for sale purposes.
Why is product photography a big deal?
With about 4 thousand companies averaging to half a million profit in annual sales by commercial photography (the USA alone), it is easy to assume it’s pretty important regarding the current technical scenario.
High-quality product photography is an easy yet effective process. It has been reduced as a basic need for an eCommerce business website. It’s not a particular part, that is negotiable or can be easily upgraded to.
How professional imagery increases the number of conversions in the eCommerce chain
High-quality e-commerce product photography gives an upper hand and increases conversions, decrease cart, lower return rates, boost your time and website traffic on-page, increase CTR and even straight away push you through a few lines while Google search.
There are many articles that prove each of these statements true. However, we will primarily focus on a single point here, about how to tweak your images to enhance conversion when eCommerce websites need it most:
Product photography equipment for top-notch results
Well, photography is one of those areas, where eCommerce owners are tempted to not save their budgets. Hence, below there are some suggestions and tips to enrich your startup eCommerce photography ideas:
Best cameras for product photography
To begin with, you can always start with your smartphone, if you don’t have a big start-up. Yes, there are nuances to it, that of quality, pixels, and size. It’s obvious, you will not be able to bring it onto the billboard, and the focus might have some more pixels for improvement, but the compromises you make will be compromises.
You need to use it with a tripod & proper lighting equipment to hike up the professional quality as much as possible. Do use the recent smartphone models, obviously, as they have their camera capabilities empowered and improved. So recent the smartphone-better the photo.
Using a DSLR is one of the tough calls you need to Take considering positives, negatives, and costs. Hence, this is a quick overview.
DSLRs pluses & minuses:
Yes, DSLRs have a greater score on the minus side regarding their cost. Yet, it is absolutely a pathbreaker in regards to quality.
Some of the positive points about the DSLR are:-
- It is more durable
- Huge market for used accessories and lenses
- they are ready to take the shot in no time, allowing us to capture that particular critical emotion.
The mirrorless cameras advantages & drawbacks:
The Mirrorless cameras are evolving every minute to put up a worthy competition to the DSLRs. Some of its advantages are:
- They are best for capturing videos, as they have a stabilizer inbuilt into the camera
- Also, they are powered by face recognition capabilities.
Some of the marketing giants in mirrorless and DSLR cameras are Nikon, Fuji, Sony, etc.
Tripod: the primary equipment for perfect product photos
Unlike a lens, tripods are the basic requirement in the process of product photography, Hence, you need to get this right. Here are some of the ways, tripods enhance our photography skills:
- Ensures that you can play with your settings, like aperture, depth of field at your will
- To enable consistent photos in the center
- A workable tripod is not much of an engineering discovery. It has pretty simple parts working to it, so anything for about 30 bucks can serve you for years
Lighting tips for product photography
Lighting plays a pretty important role in any kind of photography.
Natural sources of light can be a decent option to opt for, but it keeps changing its direction and acts a limiting for a series of shots.
To make use of the good light features, make sure and use a proper white background or reflecting cards. Also, you can place the object 90 degrees to the window.
How to photograph your product: Gradual explanation
Prepare properly for the shoot
Get your list of requirements ready way before the shoot. This would help you in starting and finishing your session easily.TIP: Make sure to sort & group your items by size and type. To capture differently-sized products, you may need to re-adjust some important factors like lighting, the tripod, or change the lens. Prep your lights accordingly as in this time you will perfectly know how to use your light for the perfect shot. Also, you need to keep a cautious eye on the background, reflectors, and surface before the photography.
Getting ready with equipment
Set the scene: A strong and wide table with the white paper sweep as a base or a washed acrylic sheet must be used. You must remember that the background and the reflectors or white cards will play the trick for you. hence, set up your tripod and the camera next.
Adjust your camera settings according to the object
Depending on your pick of camera and lighting for the shoot, you will have to alter around with the camera settings in integral aspects like that of the shutter, ISO, or the aperture.
How to properly expose light?
When you work upon your lighting, make sure you click a few trial shots with adequate sources of light and reflectors at varied positions till you get sufficient light and shadows for your picture.
Even a few office lamps can serve as the trick for e-commerce photography. If you are shooting over a table, make it a point to find a perfect location for light sources in terms of length, height, intensity, angle.
Naturally, natural light is the cheapest option that one can avail when it comes to lighting techniques. Hence, a couple of lamps with properly functioning reflector boards may result in a bit less than a perfect image with shadows on it. They are still cheap in their price and allows you to go on with shoot all day.
Choosing the right background for a photoset
Depending on your budget constraint you may end up with a white paper sweep or a poster sheet in your hand. Also, seamless paper rolls, foam boards, acrylic boards all serve the common purpose. Your budget is the main decision making factor, as most of the equipment would serve the product just fine without any kind of hindrance
Product photo shooting, the process
If you got all the preparation top-notch, your items are all sorted and packed up, the shooting process should be an absolute cakewalk.
Common product photography mistakes and ways to avoid them
When it comes to e-commerce photographers, newcomers tend to make certain mistakes that are absolutely rookie mistakes. However, these mistakes have easy solutions. Here come a few major mistakes people hit upon:
- Not prepping enough for the day and not eyeing your shoot list properly.
- Not prepping items in a proper way and paying too much heed to time & money for post-production.
- Shooting a few angles of a single product – while one product garners a bit of attention, a few more of the shots are needed to convince a user and convert him/her into a buyer.
E-commerce photographs are one of the most widely developing branches of photography. Every year, they bring in a massive amount of profit for the startups. It is one of the most important pillars for your business. This complete guide to E-commerce photography would make all the things a cakewalk for you.