Some tips on best set up

[richardhurst]

Hi everyone. I'm going to be doing some images for a catalogue company soon and was wondering what the best way to light them would be. Products could range from things like a janitorial mop/bucket system to warning signs, brushes and various other cleaning products. quite a varied mix really. Would It be possible with a one light set up or are we talking 2-3 lights here or would maybe some form of continuous lighting work like the Lupolux DayLED 1000.

 

[Garry Edwards]

You're talking several lights here, each of which has a specific job to do. There's no such thing as a standard setup, but the closest thing to it for many products would be a very large softbox light overhead, fitted to a boom arm, a key light somewhere near the front, another light providing back/rim lighting and one or two more fitted with honeycombs, to reveal texture and shape.

This assumes cut outs, but if you're planning to shoot against a white background you would need to add in another couple of lights (at least) for that, plus extra lighting to underlight the shooting table.

The fresnel spot you linked to is a very strange choice - I very occasionally use a fresnel spot myself for product shots, but it's very specialised and certainly isn't used as an everyday light.

The choice of flash or continuous doesn't matter all that much for most product shots provided that there is a wide range of adjustment on the continuous lights, but that does involve very high costs.