PLEASE help.. product video

[Worzel]

Hi all, new guy here.. please forgive me if video isn't spoke about much here (I got flamed on another forum for asking this question)

Basically I'm trying to take video of my products in how-to style videos. The products are small hand held items like mobile phones, the video will be be showing the product in use in my hands.

I'm looking for some advice on lighting, I use a Sony RX100 so I'm not expecting anything really special, but I'd like something better than the results I was getting using my mobile phone to record. But I have no idea on which light to use or how to go about doing it, I've read lots and watched videos but prefer to ask people directly. Ideally I'd like a nice white background..

Huge thanks

Worzel

 

[Phil V]

Make your mind up; is it "so I'm not expecting anything really special" or is it "Ideally I'd like a nice white background.."

You appear to have fallen from the same tree as everyone else thinking 'simple white backgrounds are everywhere, it must be easy'. It's not.

A product table that you can underlight is probably the simplest method, so you're looking at 3 lights minimum, I'd start with 4 (I'm not an expert) 2 for the table / background, and 2 for the product (to avoid too much shadowing from the operators hands. the lights will need some method of flagging and softening and power control and need to be fairly bright (I'm guessing the low light quality of that camera is not awesome).

Most people tend to think this photography / filming lark is all about cameras, when you sit down and think about how to make it you realise how ridiculous that is. You can make a blockbuster movie with a transit van full of cameras and lenses, but the sound gear will take up almost as much space, and the lighting comes on several trucks, and the props will fill a small village.

 

[Garry Edwards]

I agree.
Videographer is often used as a joking perjorative term, e.g.
"That guy will never make it as a photographer, he should go into videography"
or "videographers - aren't they the people who get in the way of photographers?"

And I think that a reason for this is that so much videography is just technically terrible, with no attention being paid to either sound or lighting, but it doesn't need to be that way and the best movie makers are extremely highly skilled and well resourced.

The camera is almost irrelevant, even an iphone can produce half way decent quality with decent lighting, leaving only sound as the problem. You need to concentrate on lighting the subject, using either a 3 or 4 light setup.

The cheapest effective way of doing this is probably with 3 or 4 of our QuadLite softbox lights, more than enough power to keep the ISO down, soft light that's easy to use and completely silent operation. There are competitive makes on the market too, but IMO it's best to avoid LED light panels, the affordable ones are currently pretty poor.

 

[Worzel]

Thanks for the replies.

This is the kind of video I'll be making:

So the lighting he uses it what I'll be needing