Approximately 25 products of different types/shapes/textures, 15 shots in a single day because budget doesn't allow you to spend more than 5 hrs from your schedule. These situations happen for some reason, when you agree at lower budget which is usually not even feasible for Product Shoots which would need specialized equipments apart from skills. Recently I came across such situation and here is how I planned & executed.
It was Friday when I received all the products from a client and he wanted the photographs as early as possible (like every client :) ). Usually I get a studio on rent, if budget allows me to do so. But when it's not affordable I use the equipment I have. This was a special case when I didn't even have a DSLR and no light-box or reflector. Whole of my weekend went into this shoot & post-processing, but that was worth (I learned a lot).
These products were shot with Nikon P330 with it's inbuilt flash and 2 thermocol sheets. Are you wondering why? and how did I use the camera flash? So here is a process I followed. -
1. Put my camera on Tripod.
2. Setup a table with one thermocol sheet on base and other was perpendicular to this, which was used as background.
3. Places two chairs on my left and right side which largest available steel plates.
4. A visiting card to redirect flash (highest power) towards roof. For some shots, I used butter-paper(to soften the harshness) to throw flash directly.
5. Used Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for final finish (removing the pattern of thermocol sheets to make it pure white) and giving natural color/contrast to the products.
This was a brilliant exercise and great learning experience. I learned reflecting capabilities of various things available in my house and now I know what kind of other reflectors can be used for different types of products/subjects. For example, light proposition changes for products made up of wood, glass, fiber etc.
Thought of sharing about this experience and definitely it works very well. Just give it a try with anything lying in your house and feel free to comment back if you have specific questions about this.
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