How To Shoot Better Small Product Photography With Your iPhone

Welcome to the beginner's guide for small product photography .

This video is specifically designed for photographers that want to improve their small product photography with their iphone and it's designed for people that sell online in places like Etsy or ebay or even Craigslist .

You've heard the old adage that a picture is worth 1000 words .

Not so fast .

If I were to modernize that adage , this is how I would rephrase it that a perfectly exposed .

A perfectly focused , a perfectly wide balance .

A perfectly composed photograph is worth 1000 words .

Because if you're selling online , you know , the power of pictures to sell , you need great photography .

So where's the best place to shoot small product photography with your iphone ?

I hate to sound obvious , but you have two options indoors or outdoors .

If you're shooting indoors , the best place in a house to shoot small product photography with your iphone is look for either south or north facing windows where the light is soft and indirect .

One of the easiest places to shoot small product photography is a patio or deck , bring your table outdoors , wait for cloud cover , so you're not fussing or fighting with Dapple light and shoot away .

So for this shot , we're neither technically indoors or outdoors .

We're sort of somewhere in between .

We're in a garage that's facing north , which means it has beautiful soft , indirect light and there's really nothing to the shot .

I found these two pieces of , uh , looks like ceiling tile , um , that were painted and I'm gonna use those as a right angle backdrop .

You can see , I put one against the wall .

I stuck another one here using this table and open this wide garage door .

I'm gonna set my product here .

Show you a couple of tips on how to make it look fantastic .

That's all there is to it .

Shoot away when it comes to small product photography , light .

There's three terms that you need to know natural light , artificial light and ambient or available light , natural light is the light cast by the sun .

Artificial light is the light cast by indoor bulbs and ambient or available light is a combination of the two cannon .

Recently introduced the brand new five Ds which is a whopping 50 megapixel full frame DSLR sensor .

Wow , no matter how you slice and dice it , that's a lot of pixels .

So what do you do with all those pixels and is the lowly eight megapixel iphone camera going to be adequate for small product photography that we're sharing online .

My simple answer without getting too technical is absolutely yes .

Once again , you can see how critical .

The background is for each of your shot .

You want to style your background to complement that the objects and the subjects that you're shooting .

Once again , I am using a set of polymer background grounds from a company called Moorhouse .

And you can see right here that I have , you know , rose , blue white .

I think I have 10 of these colors .

What I like about these is that they're non reflective surfaces , they're food safe , they're anti static .

I can clean them , wipe them down , spill stuff on them and I can use them again and again , the point of an infinity sweep is to create the illusion of an infinite background .

Now , why do you do that ?

So the viewer can focus their sole attention on the product .

Watch how clean this looks since we have this old Zenith radio in hand , let's do another variation shot , remove the infinity curve or the sweep and shoot it with a hard right angle and a colored background .

And then you be the judge which one you like the best .

So let's illustrate .

The concept of less is more .

Remember your viewing audience has a fraction of a second to either buy in or not with the photograph that you're showing them .

Now , this tea set probably has over 100 pieces rather than show them all 100 pieces .

Less is more we've taken selective parts of each and are going to make a nice pleasing , simple composition less is more .

Let's illustrate that the camera angle is the angle of the camera to the subject .

I'm going to show you three simple camera angles that will elevate your iphone photography .

We have the low angle , the front angle and the high angle , the low angle , which is also called a worm's eye view is pretty much shot from almost your table top , let's do it and knock off a shot like that , close the front view or they say the front three quarter view is probably the most common and it's the most popular .

Why ?

Because that's how our eyes see the most objects as we meander through the rhythms and rituals of life .

That's where the camera is about 45 degrees in front of the product .

So I like that shot right there .

Gonna work that just a little bit .

That's your front three quarter view .

And then the third is the bird's eye view that's shot directly overhead .

That's more of a graphic representation of the subject .

I'm going to restyle the shot and then show you what that high angle view looks like .

This is your high angle view of all the angles .

It's my favorite angle because it's the one you see the least .

And it's also probably graphically the most pleasing .

If you think about it , the lens that's built into the iphone is a 35 millimeter equivalent of a 30 millimeter lens that's like shooting with a wide angle lens with about a 70 degree field of view .

That's what the camera angle is that actually sees the subject .

So for those of you that are like shoot a lot of Ds LR and product photography , you know , probably the last lens you would put on your camera for product work is a wide angle lens wide because if you get too close , it exaggerates the subject .

So what you have to do when you're shooting with a fixed 30 millimeter wide angle lens is just back up a little bit like right about there .

And that's what I want .

That's actually quite nice .

Let's just take a couple of shots of that .

When you're shooting small product photography , like these wooden bowls , it's important that the background complement the subject .

Let's take a shot plain and simple , just like that .

But these wooden bowls are so simple .

Let's add a little bit of nature to punch up the shot .

Yeah , I mean , obviously I'm standing on the table to get this overview angle , but it's absolutely wonderful .

I love this shot .

And uh , it's really , uh because the bulls , uh you know , have this , um , you know , this roundness to them .

It looks so beautiful from a top down view .

When I'm doing this type of small product photography , I'm never shooting an auto wide because all this white , the white on the Fuji camera , the white on the background is going to fool the meter and render the picture dark .

I don't need less light .

I need more light .

So I'm using my favorite camera replacement or camera supplement app called Camera Plus that allows photographers like me to manually control exposure .

I can manually control focus .

I can manually control white balance .

So that's what I'm doing because I don't want to leave the camera to interpret my creative tent .

I want to be in control of that .

So let's take a couple of shots .

Uh Right here .

I'm just running some power and I'm using of course my Pixie mini um tripod from Man Frodo , which I really like .

And I'm gonna bracket this , which means that I'm gonna change my exposure a couple of times like the camera angle .

Just clothes are one of those things that if you take the extra effort , you can put your own , stamp , your own style , your own thumbprint on the photograph .

That's what we're gonna do here .

Everything is gonna be a high angle against white , pop off the page .

Follow me .

Let's shoot some clothes .

Let's talk a little bit about my favorite subject in small product photography .

That's styling .

Styling is any intentional move that you make to improve the overall look and feel of the object or subject that you're shooting .

So a matter of fact , if you think about it , styling is not so much how a product looks but how the product feels even more to the point .

Styling is putting the U in your photograph .

Well , there you have it , some beginner tips for improving your small product photography .

Don't get bogged down in the tech stuff .

Try to apply the basic precepts and principles and practices that I've outlined here .

And I guarantee that your mobile photography will be light years beyond what you see online , that means selling more products .

Now , get out there , shoot , show us your best stuff .