If colour accuracy is important I would have thought it’s essential, especially if you don’t have a calibrated monitor. Grey cards aren’t expensive.

I find it easier to set WB using a white card, I would only use a grey card to set exposure (but most likely chimp it). A colour checker passport or similar would be the ultimate if you want to be 100% certain of the colours though.

At work we have a frame and a huge white sheet which we can drape behind and under for a backdrop. Then we have two high power daylight bulbs with diffusers to light the subject. Seems to work ok.

NB Good effort for a 1st attempt.

Thanks flaps.

Thinking about umbrellas now. They are cheap, would they be useful..?

I find it easier to set WB using a white card, I would only use a grey card to set exposure

Why’s that then?

Thinking about umbrellas now. They are cheap, would they be useful..?

yes. get the convertable ones, silver/white with black on the outside for a more direct light and then a white shoot through on lower power for a fill-in. they are the same brolly but the black/silver comes off

These are the lights I’ve used: http://www.photosel.co.uk/studio-lighting/continuous-lighting/light-heads/studio-light-head-lh21e51.html

NB No idea how good they are in terms of other stuff as they’re the only ones I’ve used. I just do the company photography as a hobby as it’s quicker / easier than shipping stuff out to a professional. I can just set up in a meeting room and do product shots in my lunch break….

If you’re anywhere near Cambridge, you’re welcome to borrow them to play with…

Thanks, but I’m a long way from Cambridge 🙂

MrS will look for those ta.

There are cheapo £6 brollies on amazon, I could get a white one and a silver one for less than one convertible one. Assuming there’s no disadvantage with going super cheap.

I usually use just one prime light. That is use the second light to fill or add accent two light mean two sets of shadows and a flat looking lighting setup. Between two lights if your looking at making the product look natural keep one light lower than the other. as a friend said ‘ there is only ever one sun’
Twin light or flat light is usually reserved for techical/medical eveidence photography rather than advertising.

Hmm.. so now maybe.. one light 45 degrees left and high up, reflector or second light on lower power to the right 45 degrees.. move the scarf far enough away from the backdrop so that any shadows can be cropped out of the picture… hmmm….

Why’s that then?

Because it’s white balance, not grey balance 😉

In seriousness, I read something ages ago that using grey can increases chroma noise errors and most grey cards aren’t really neutral grey (mine isn’t, it’s a bit yellow), but mainly I just think i’m more likely to have something lying around that’s easily identifiable as white rather than look for something neutral grey.

FWIW I don’t normally set a custom WB, I’d do that in Lightroom. In the shots shown earlier I think it would be easier to reference the white background for WB (as long as it’s not blown).

I wonder how far away from the lovely scarves knitted by mrs long-suffering molgrips this thread can get…

I suspect she has a special one to wind gently around mr molgrips throat!

In seriousness, I read something ages ago that using grey can increases chroma noise errors and most grey cards aren’t really neutral grey (mine isn’t, it’s a bit yellow), but mainly I just think i’m more likely to have something lying around that’s easily identifiable as white rather than look for something neutral grey.

Fair enough, never heard that before. It’s just I know a photography trainer that recommends using a grey card for WB. I shall take pleasure in telling him he’s wrong. 🙂

FWIW I don’t normally set a custom WB, I’d do that in Lightroom. In the shots shown earlier I think it would be easier to reference the white background for WB (as long as it’s not blown).

I don’t either, but if you take a pic of the grey card, then use the WB dropper on LR, you can then apply that WB to all the photos from that set. I don’t do it often TBF but if colour accuracy was that big an issue I would. The thing is with a lot of stuff that is ‘white’ it actually isn’t quite, can be hard to tell sometimes.

Top effort for a first go! I’d struggle with something like that!

One thing I would be tempted to do is experiment with the position of the light – on the odd occasion i have photographed MrsMM’s woollen goods, (for her to post on the knitting version of STW) I tend to use daylight (as i don’t need consistency…) but I position the garment so light hits it at an angle that would be (at a guess) equivalent to the light being at 60-70 degrees from camera so you are lighting more ‘across’ the item, helping to show the texture as well.

Re the colour side of things – it is worth getting it as right as possible which could involve the use of (investment) in a device like a Spyder – that makes sure that what you’re posting is as accurate as you can make it but, be aware – I believe it is fair to say that the majority of monitors out there are not calibrated at all so do be aware that this could lead to issues when clients get their goods – be sure to be detailed about the colour in your text description to avoid confusion / returns.
IIRC – people like paint companies have on their websites a disclaimer to this effect.

<wishes BenjiM all the best> – the cheese is arguably quite straightforward but, the foil wrapped item is reflecting things from all angles!

it’s quicker / easier than shipping stuff out to a professional. I can just set up in a meeting room and do product shots in my lunch break….

so let me get this right, you give up your lunch hour to do unpaid work for the company you work for? 😯

most grey cards aren’t really neutral grey (mine isn’t, it’s a bit yellow)

You know, your eyes aren’t necessarily accurate either. Each one of mine has a different colour temp, so how a ‘white’ card looks varies depending on which eye I look out of!

I wonder how far away from the lovely scarves knitted by mrs long-suffering molgrips this thread can get.

Hehe.. they are woven, not knitted, which makes them more awesome.. and she actually appreciates the fact that I’m helping her out. She’s very picky about colours and stuff, so I can help her out and get approval for some camera kit at the same time 🙂 Not that umbrellas and stuff are exciting, but I might be able to get a better second flash…

Marsdenman – cheers.. next weekend I’m going to experiment with having the primary light shining more across the fabric, and perhaps getting more creative with the background light.

A question first, are you trying to sell the scarves on behalf of your wife, or are you trying to learn product photography?

If it’s the first, then try something off the wall like draping them around animals, dogs, cats or farmyard types complete with sunnies of course, in this day and age in order to be noticed things need to be very different.

If it’s the second, then generally product photography gets carried out preferably in a daylight studio if your lucky enough to find one then with lighting as highlights, next best is studio lights with umbrellas, cones, highlighters. I did have a set kicking around from a former life I’m wondering where they are now.
Also doing the job for real you tend to use large format cameras, not such a problem with scarfs but close up with other stuff you get sharpness issues due to acute depth of field close up.

It used to be my job in a previous life, it must be easier now with digital backs, in our day we used to shoot polaroids till we got the effect we needed.

Having said all that, I didn’t think what you’d done so far was a bad effort, at the end of the day product shots are about getting the job done so folk can see what it is they are about to buy and you’ve done that O.K. already..

I’m trying to take photos of the stuff so she can make her Etsy store.

She tried herself with her P&S but was not satisfied particularly with the colour reproduction.

I asked on here about it, and was advised to use incandescent light or flash, and I happened to have flashes lying around and I noticed stands and umbrellas etc are very cheap on Amazon, so that’s where we ended up.

We also had to find a way of displaying the articles, which involved searching for artistically gnarly bits of wood, and we needed a backdrop because we only had a small corner of the junk filled spare room in which to work… Oh and we are on an extreme budget so we can’t splash loads of money on lighting.

I agree that the product shots are just to show the article, but we also do need to make them look good and make good looking pictures, because there are lots of scarves on Etsy already. I think displaying them creatively and making attractive pictures is going to be as hard as taking the damn pictures.

generally product photography gets carried out preferably in a daylight studio

what a load of twaddle. it’s gloomy as fu*k out there right now so no work would get done today. it’s not a midsummer miami beach bikini shoot. 🙄

All good comments on here so I’ll just ask:

1) Are you shooting in RAW, in if not, why not?

2) Did you take some close ups of the actual weave? – Folk appreciate such things and you can get all arty with the diagonals etc.

Put them on a dog with shades on. Everyone loves a dog in shades.

generally product photography gets carried out preferably in a daylight studio

Guy across the road from me was a professional product photographer. Their studios had no windows, all blacked out. He says the ratio of his work was typically spending up to 3 days sorting our lighting and about 15 mins or less taking photos. The 3 days was for big things like F1 cars (it’s a big studio).