With the advancement of smartphone cameras, it’s easier than ever to take professional-looking product images without needing an expensive studio. Below we will be going through some tips and tricks to make sure you are on your way to shooting professional product images.
Why use a smartphone for product photography?
Smartphones come with a variety of premium features, but undoubtedly one of the most used features is the high-quality cameras that you find on them. Here are a few reasons your phone is more than capable of taking your product images.
1. The biggest advantage is a high megapixel camera. Most new mid-high end smartphones have great cameras with high megapixel counts. With the right lighting condition, it allows you to get great images.
2. The Smartphones offers thousands of different apps for image editing or photo capturing, other than the built-in options it already provides.
3. Large storage space. While shooting, you won’t need to transfer files to continue taking more pictures. Some smartphones have expandable memory which enables you to expand the phone’s memory up to 1GB.
Accessories to help you get the most out of your smartphone camera setup.
1. Macro lens: It is used to capture small objects in a close distance. It’s highly effective for capturing details of a product.
2. Tripod. This provides a stable position for the smartphone to avoid image blur.
3. Lighting kit. Smartphone flashes aren’t powerful enough which is especially limiting when shooting in low light. We wouldn’t recommend using the flash, but to rather invest in a small lighting kit. You can also create a DIY lighting setup which you can do on a very small budget. We also wrote a blog about understanding a lighting setup which you can read here.
4. Bluetooth remote control. This remote connects to your phone through Bluetooth and helps take pictures steadily. Very often the phone will take a blurry picture because of the hand’s movement. It can be avoided by using a remote control.
Smartphone tips for better picture results:
These small tips and tricks will have a huge impact on the product images final results.
The first tip before taking any pictures is to ensure the camera lens is clean. Very often there are fingerprints or dust, which is hard to edit out of a picture.
When shooting products, make sure to take them on a white background, to facilitate the editing process. If a product is placed on a busy background, the customer will be distracted by it.
Angles: Make sure to take pictures of the product from the front, the side and the back. Don’t forget to emphasize the details of the picture.
Flash: Don’t use the flash. Try and get natural light or a studio lighting setup.
High Dynamic Range (HDR): HDR is used to take good pictures when there is a high contrast of lights to capture more details. It balances exposure by taking multiple pictures and then combining them.
Use the burst option to take multiple pictures at once, especially when there is motion.
Take as many pictures as you can, from different angles, focal points, positions, and distances.
Grid feature: This feature uses the rule of thirds and divide the screen into horizontal and vertical lines. This helps the composition, as it creates balance and centre the objects in a picture.
To make sure your photo is not too light, too dark or out of focus, give the phone a good time to adjust on the subject.
Use editing filters wisely: Although filters are used for enhancement, overly edited pictures give the opposite results. For product photography, filters are not necessary as the result must be as natural and realistic as possible.
Choose one of the multiple modes (portrait, square, panorama…) to get the desired result on your picture. Explore these features to make your pictures more interesting and not so basic.
Crop the picture instead of zooming in to ensure the picture’s quality is higher.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve learned all the tips and tricks, it’s time to experiment and take advantage of your smartphone camera. Smartphone photography can look professional, with little effort.
