What type of lights do I need

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burningbarricade

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Hi there everyone,

I've started a website selling baby clothes and I'm having problems getting the product shots right.

I do have another ecommerce site which sells smaller items which fitted into a light tent and which I was able to photograph just using a combination of several energy saving lights (which make things a bit yellowy) and a couple of more professional looking lights that I borrowed off a mate. They are proper white light and were bright but sometimes made harsh shadows.

Anyway, the photos I've taken for my new site are a different kettle of fish since they won't fit in the light box and any attempt I've made so far to photograph them looks crap. Also the girls pink colours are really hard to make look good. I've even resorted to using the flash since the two lights I have were just not bright enough.

So basically i want to buy some new (or 2nd hand) lights and I'm looking for a little advice. What type of lighting kit should I be looking for and has anyone any suggestions for somewhere to purchase.

I don't want to have to spend lots and lots of money. But I want something which will do the trick.

in case you want to see how crap some of my photos are look here

any advice would be gratefully received.

thanks
david
 
I think there are a couple of tips here:

1. you are doing still life, the brightnes of the light is not such an issue as you can use a tripod and a longer shutter speed. So it is not essential to invest in expensive studio lights to get a good image.

2. If you shoot in RAW with a grey card you can correct for white balance, so the colour of your lights is not a show stopper. You can do this PP or in the camera which ever is most convenient (assuming you are using a camera with that functionality)

3 . Saturation - your images are all very washed out, this might be the white balance issue or it may be the saturation settings in your camera / software. If fixing the white balance has not boosted the colours then boost the saturation

4. Presentation - your product shots are very flat (this is what product looks like - this is what you are buying), I assume this was deliberate, however you products will never "zing" if presented like that no matter how good the lighting. Look at the product shots in catalogue shop magazines for inspiration.
 
hey there Will, cheers for replying,

"If you shoot in RAW with a grey card you can correct for white balance"

I know I can shoot in RAW with my camera but what is a grey card?

Re: the presentation, yeah I know they look flat, and it's not perfect but the problem I had is we have so many different sizes because babies grow so quick that I'd need about loads of different manikins for girls and boys. Other baby sites that I see either use real children (a bit expensive for me), have cartoonish type images or just photo them flat.

I'll maybe look into it a bit more ***.
 
A Grey card is exactly what is says , a card that is Grey.

It's a neutral reference point, so that pictures taken under different light conditions can be adjusted to give the same colour. You can go out and buy one but to be honest any medium Grey ( not glossy) reference item will do.
 
You can use a white card as well, most camera will have a custom setting for white light BUT if shooting in RAW it not matter as any setting you set it will not alter the RAW file only give you a starting point when in your RAW converter.
 
This is great info thanks people.

I've been reading up a bit on grey cards in the meantime and I'll pop out and get something suitable tomorrow.

Has anyone got any good sources for helping me to understand what I need to do once I have my RAW photo with greycard in the background onto my laptop and into photoshop?

Cheers
D
 
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