Product Photography: A one light setup

HTC Touch Diamond

I’ve been listening to the really very good This Week In Photography Podcast for about a month now, and one tip that co-host Scott Bourne dropped in a number of episodes stayed with me as something I wanted to try out for myself.

The tip in question was intended for use as a studio portraiture technique, but we’ve been looking for a way to liven up some of the product photographs that we use at CNET, and I thought I would give it a go on some products.

Scott’s tip is basically this - in order to get really soft lighting from a studio flash head, don’t just use a softbox, but move your subject as close as you possibly can to the surface of the softbox without it getting in your shot. This is a pretty non-intuitive thing to do, as you might expect the light to get harsher the closer it is to the subject, but Scott assured his listeners that the reverse was true, and that the light would wrap around the subject and provide the desired effect.

Product Photography Technique Sony Ericsson W350iYou can see in the image on the left (click the image to enlarge) the setup I’ve used for these shots. Scott said that you should have your subject only a couple of inches away from the softbox - in practice I found this very hard to do without getting the edge of the softbox in the frame, so it was more like 5-6 inches away. The technique has produced the desired result - a really nice, soft light that you can see in the main image of the HTC Touch Diamond above, and also in the image of the Sony Ericsson W330i on the right (click the image to enlarge).

This one-light technique does have some limitations, however, largely that any details on the opposite side to the light remain in shadow. Scott did say that part of the result of having the subject so close to the softbox would be that the light would wrap-around the subject and do the job of rear lighting. I did not find this to be the case. As you can see in both the product images, there is no edge highlighting, and the rear of the products is in darkness. This isn’t really a problem for the HTC and Sony Ericsson shots, as all I’m really trying to do is show the face of the phone in detail, and the fact that the rest remains shadowy is part of the overall effect of the shot.

Fujifilm FinePix F100fd Product Photography Technique I also tried the technique with a digital camera - the Fujifilm FinePix F100fd. With this shot, the lens jutted out on the right hand side of the camera and blocked the light that was coming from the left, leaving the right hand side in shadow and the image looking unbalanced (click the image on the left to see what i mean). To solve this, I asked my lovely assistant Natasha to hold a white reflector (see the image on the right), which bounced the light nicely back onto the right hand side of the camera, allowing the details there to be seen (see the main image below for the results).

Fujifilm FinePix F100fd

Overall I’m really happy with the results from using this one-light technique. The images that you see have been tidied up slightly in Photoshop, but appear pretty much as they did coming off the camera. I suspect I’ll be using this method quite a lot in the coming months :)

Many thanks to Scott Bourne of TWIP Photo for the tip, and to Natasha Lomas for putting up with me calling her Assistant Lomas.

Equipment used in this shoot

  • 1 x Bowens GM250 flash unit
  • 1 x Bowens 60cm x 60cm softbox
  • 1 x Lastolite reversible reflector
  • 1 x Canon 30D body
  • 1 x Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens
  • 1 x Natasha Lomas