If you’re looking for a low-budget way to get Product photographs with yourself, use a smartphone camera! This guide How to do Product photography with phone will guide you walk you through the process, from the equipment you need to studio setups and post-Production (editing your pictures).
Need to get photos of your Products for an e-commerce website, but you don’t have a camera? How to do Product photography at home
Read also: How to start a photography business with no experience
Don’t worry. Your smartphone camera will do just fine. Read these simple and easy smartphone camera Products photography tips and tricks to get started.
Choose Your (Phone) Camera – How to do Product photography with phone
Most smartphone cameras today come with high-performance cameras built-in. The newest models have more megapixels and better picture sensors than ever before, and some even have two or three lenses instead of the standard single lens. You need and should to use the latest model with the best highest megapixel (“MP”) count you can take your hands on. Everything in this article can be complete with a mid-level smartphone camera so don’t worry if you don’t have the latest feature device. I always use an iPhone 8. How to do Product photography for amazon
These latest phone models all have good cameras with 12MP (Mega Pixel) or more, which will deliver the picture high quality you need for How to do Product photography with phone
iPhone 8 or newer
Google Pixel 2 or newer
Huawei P20 Pro or newer
Samsung Galaxy S8 or newer
Grabbing the best phone for Products photography is only half the battle. To get the very best results from a smartphone camera, you’re going to need a few tricks up your sleeve. Here are simple and easy tips and tricks you can use to create sure your pictures turn out looking great.
Use Natural Light
Studio lighting for How to do Product photography with phone allows to you the most control over your clips, scene, though the equipment can be too expensive. If you’re working on a small budget, natural light is a great alternative – it provides an organic look and is very easy to get the advantage of. Plus, it’s free!
for getting best quality and results, set up the photo-shoot in a spaces with plenty of natural lighting this could be near a door or large window. If you have to fill in any shadows, try using a reflector to steer the available light onto your product.
Don’t Zoom
When you’re learning how to get great Products photos with a smartphone camera, this is one of the most necessary rules to remember – don’t zoom! As you zoom in, the resolution will drop and decrease the picture quality.
Instead, try to physically take closer to your product if you need to fill the frame, and steer clear of that digital zoom.
Gather Your Accessories
Tripod or Stand
If you capture majority small product items, a table-top or mini tripod will do best. If you shoot larger product items (i.e. furniture) you might want a full-size tripod. create sure the one you buy either comes with, or is compatible with, a smartphone camera clip attachment.
If you already have a regular budget camera tripod at home, dont buy new, you can save budget and just buy camera clip for it.
tripod pic
Wireless Remote
Camera shake = blurry photos.
sometime your finger taps the screen to take a photo, you at the risk of shaking the camera while it’s capturing the product picture.
Even a small movement can create a big difference in the quality and sharpness of the photo and result in losing necessary detail of your Products. Wireless remotes are not costly (most less than $9) and easily connect to your smartphone camera through Bluetooth.
Read also: HOW GET WATER OUT OF YOUR FRONT CAMERA
Add-on Lenses – how to take product pictures with phone
Best lenses pic
Editing Apps for Quick Products Photography Retouching
There are tons of powerful phone apps you can use to edit your pictures. Some of the best includes Snapseed, Adobe Lightroom, and VSCO.
Although the editing apps I mentioned have similar editing capabilities, they also have features that create each one unique.
If you want simple and easy color correction and minor exposure adjustments, the best app to use is VSCO. It offers presets that changes the overall look of your pictures. But it also help you to adjust elements such as contrast, lights, and sharpness.
For more perfect editing you’ll need Adobe Lightroom. Apart from the basic exposure adjustments, it also lets you remove blemishes in the picture.
All you have to do is clink on the spots you wish to delete, and the application will do the rest.
Another app that’s perfect for retouching is Snapseed. It has many customizable presets that help you to do anything from colour correction to healing.
You can even use it to experiment with selective focusing or adjusting your picture’s perspective.
When editing your pictures, the first step you need to go through is colour correction. To complete this, look for your White Balance slider and move it up and down until the hues look natural.
At the next, set and adjust the basics of exposure settings such as brightness, sharpness and contrast. Your target is to ensure the picture is exposed correctly and the colours look good and perfect.
Finally, remove the blemishes using your healing tools. Just click and swipe the areas where you want to remove the bad spots.
How to do Product photography with iphone
Prepare to Shoot
Now that you have got your equipment gathered, it’s time to set up and prepare your studio and get everything in place.
Build Your Set
For setting up your studio you need 3 things to create a perfect job:
1. A flat surface
A plain backgrounds
A light source.
Surface – How to do Product photography at home with phone
select a flat surface in a space with enough room for your Products, backgrounds, and tripod/smartphone cameras.
backgrounds
For best results use simple and easy white or gray backgrounds that won’t distract from the Products. A white “sweep” works best as it will fill in space behind and underneath the Products, and will also help reflect light onto the Products.
White seamless paper is a budget and good choice and easy to find at any photography equipment store. A pure white craft paper or cloth could work, too. Just create sure your background is wider than your Products and fills the whole frame of the picture so you don’t have to crop in.
For small Products, a tabletop setup will work. You can also DIY your own, or purchase a professional and perfect light tent.
For larger Productss, you’ll need to create a bigger sweep by hanging a roll of white seamless paper from a stand, or taping to a wall.
Lighting in case
Soft, diffused light is best for shooting Products pictures. There are two options to take it:
If natural light is available it’s the easiest to work with and it’s free. Bright, indirect sunlight is best. Fill in shadows and create even lighting on all sides by using a bounce card to reflect the natural light around your Products.
If you are capturing at night or in a room where natural light is enough or limited, you can also use artificial lights. It may be hard to get the results you want when using artificial lights so if you know you are going this way, it’s maybe a cool idea to invest in some lighting equipment, such as a light tent or softbox kit.
Here is many affordable and easy options available like this pop-up shooting tents and this self-lit “studio in a box”.
I always used a sturdy chair to build my set on How to do Product photography with phone. I cut a small piece of paper off my roll of white seamless and clipped it to the back of the chair to create a sweep. Using a chair to take a position on the set where the light was going to be perfect. For big items like furniture etc, you could push a table against a wall instead with a chair. I also used a white bounce card to help reflect the window light onto the shadow side of the earrings.
Turn The Flash Off
Using the flash feature of your smartphone camera will rarely produce the results you’re chasing – especially since they have a reputation for leaving behind blurry, blown-out, and poorly colored pictures.
Instead, keep save yourself the hassle and keep the flash turned off. If you need more good lightings, set ups your shoot in a location with an abundance of natural lights.
Clean The Product
This may sound simple and easy, though it’s a step that’s easily forgotten in the moment. Before you start your photoshoot, remember to give your Products a quick clean to remove any specks of dust or smudges.
These can stick out like a sore thumb in online stores, decreasing the appeal of a Products picture. To prevent this, always use a microfibre cloth to gently clean your subject – it’ll save a lot of stress down the line
Though if you do notice a few specks of dust in your pictures, don’t lose hope. Rather than a going via the effort of re shooting, try editing them out in adobe Photoshop.
ear ring pic
Use An External Trigger-How to do Product photography at home
There’s no room for blurry shots in an eCommerce store, especially since customers depend on clean and accurate pictures on their purchasing journey.
Luckily, crisp-looking pictures aren’t difficult to create – all you need to do is prevent camera-shake during the photo-shoot. It may be sound dramatic, though even the smallest and little nudge as you’re taking the photos can be disastrous.
To ensure your pictures turn out nice and crisp, you’re going to need an external trigger. They connect to your smartphone camera wirelessly and allow you to trigger the camera without touching your phone.
Use A Mobile Lens- How to take product photos
Though latest smartphone cameras can produce remarkable and good results, there’s only so much they can do. Fortunately, mobile photography has advanced over the recent years – and there are now plenty of high-grade smartphone camera lenses you can use to boost your camera’s capabilities.
For example, you can use wide-angle lenses if you’re working with bigger Productss to create sure you’re getting everything in-frame. Otherwise, a macro lens would be a better and good selection if you’re shooting smaller items like jewellery, micro or watches. They help you to get closer to the Productss so you’re able to properly capture all the intricate details.
Mobile lenses are proving to be a handy addition to any photoshoot, allow you to customize your approach when shooting particular Products.
Shooting with your smartphone camera
Equipment Used in this Shoot- How to product photography
iPhone 8
Mini tripod with smartphone camera clip
White seamless paper for backgrounds
White bounce card
Wireless remote
Clip-on macro lens (for close-ups)
First, some DON’Ts:
DON’T use the digital zoom in camera app. When it comes to smartphone camera cameras, picture quality gets worse the more you zoom in. Try moving your phone closer to the Products instead, or use a clip-on zoom or macro lens.
DON’T use the flash.
The flash light on your phone won’t give you the best results you need. If you need more lights, get it from your other light source. Add a bounce card, increase the powers on artificial light, move closer to the window or door.
DON’T use photo filters.
This isn’t the right time to use the fun filters that you using during taking a selfie in your camera app. Keep things look like natural and real as possible so the photos are perfect and an accurate representation of the Products.
Now, what you should DO:
Once everything is in place, open your camera app of choice (Camera+ for me) and start composing the picture and making adjustments to the settings.
Grab A Lightbox
For a clean and softer, even distribution of lights over your product, consider investing in a lightbox for your photoshoot. A lightbox is necessary a little tent made from semi-transparent materials that diffuse and soften the incoming lights over your product.
This easy way and simple photography tool fights off harsh light and strong shadows, to make it easier to capture professional-looking Products pictures
Click Multiple Shots
Capture many shots When it comes to Product photography, there’s plenty of advantages that come with getting a small trigger cool with your camera.
clicking multiple shots of your product from different angles and different styles, you can increase your odds of taking the awesome shot. The first picture is not good or maybe a little blurry, while the next is slightly off-center though in this cluster will likely be a picture worthy of your website or blog.
Getting many pictures of the same product gives extra options and flexibility when you go back to edit them later on in Photoshop.
Edit Your Photos- How to start product photography
The photo-shoot is only half the job – once you’ve got a series of crisp-looking pictures, consider taking some time to edit the shots.
Using the photo editing platforms like Lightroom allows you to with more control over a photo’s final look. In these apps, you can adjust and control the exposure, brightness, contrast, color, and more to create the picture look its very cool and awesome. It may get some practice to become sociable with the procedure, though the results will speak for themselves.
Otherwise if you don’t have time to learn how to retouch your pictures, consider hiring a professional to do the hard work. The service is often very affordable and can elevate your pictures to a whole new level of quality.
For small business owners working on a small budget, smartphone camera Products photography continues to be an affordable option. With this surprisingly latest camera sitting in your pockets, you can make a series of crisp and clean good pictures worthy of your site.
Though the results don’t quite meet the standards of a DSLR camera, there are plenty of ways you can create your pictures look even better whether it’s by using natural good light, turn the flash off, keep prevent the digital zoom functions, or editing your photos after the shoots. With these simple and easy tips and tricks by your side, you’ll be taking beautiful Products photos in no time at all.
In Settings:
making sure your app is set to shoot in the HD picture quality available.
Select if you want to shoot in JPEG or RAW
RAW photos collect more picture data than JPEG files so you’ll have more information to work with later. This can be very useful if you plan to edit the photos on your PC. They are bigger files and get up more room on your phone so keep that in mind if you’re low on storage space.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts) is the standard format for most smartphone camera photos and is awesome fine for the most purposes, particularly if the photos are going to be used primarily online (as opposed to print, for example).
Open the Camera, then:
Turn on the Grid and Level so you can place your Products evenly in the center.
Focus – tap the screen to manually focus on your Products. Lock focus.
White Balance – you can adjust the white balance to your lighting conditions, or choose AWB (auto white balance) if you’re not sure. AWB (auto white balance) usually does an awesome good job “guessing” the accurate balance when you place the WB button on the white background.
Exposure – the camera can choose the exposure for you but create sure to “tell it” where to look (i.e. don’t expose for the white backgrounds or your Products will be too dark). Drag the exposure icon (button) to the place you want to expose for and let the application adjust accordingly. How to do Product photography with phone This feature is easy to use if you’re not familiar with DSLR camera controls.
Alternately, you can manually set the exposure by adjusting the shutter speed (try to not go slower than 1/125 to reduce the risk of camera shake), and use Exposure Compensation +/- to increase or decrease brightness. Lock exposure.
Turn on picture Stabilization
When your setting in a place, use the wireless BT (BlueTooth) remote (or very gently click the capture button on your smartphone) to get your first product photo.
STOP and look at the picture BEFORE you get more photos.
make sure your focus, lightings, exposure, and positions are all looking perfect. make adjustments as need and get sample photos until you’re happy with this setting, then fire away.
get a variety of photos of the Products to show as much detail as possible. Use a telephoto or macro lens to zoom in on necessary features, such as texture. Capture the photos of the front and back, the top and bottom the inside and outside. You can leave your tripod, backgrounds, and lights in the same position and only move the Products so the lighting and perspective will be consistent in all of the photos.
Editing
Once you’ve captured all the pictures you want, it’s time to edit. The camera applicatons listed earlier all have dynamic editing suites, so you can capture and edit in the same app if you want to. Or you may be like the camera controls in one applicaton and the editing options in a different app.
Or you might not want to spend your own precious time editing pictures when you can get them professionally edited by Pixelz. Post-Production is a great opportunity to get the advantage of the efficiencies available in our interconnected, technology-driven world. Compare retouching features on different Pixelz plans, and integrate with the free Shopify app if you’re on Shopify!
But back to mobile apps. While I use Lightroom app in my phone (more on that later), Snapseed is another app worth mentioning. It’s one of the best mobile photo editing apps on the market, with advanced controls for experienced editors and plenty of easy-to-use features that just about anyone can figure out. For iOS and Android. How to do Product photography with phone
How to Edit:
Select the pictures you want to edit.
If you have to edit in a many apps than you shot in, you may need to export the pictures to your camera roll first so you can import them to your editing app.
Screenshot of camera+ app when exporting 5 Products photos to adobe lightroom app Pin It
An Adobe Creative Cloud subscription installed on my smartphone and I like editing in Lightroom, both for the options of use, and so all of my pictures sync from the cloud. For shooting, I like the Camera+ 2 interface better than Lightroom so I use one app to shoot and another to edit. It’s really personal preference.
Most pictures need a little help to look their best. Use the app to create basic adjustments such as brightness, contrast, sharpness, highlights/shadows, and white balance.
Don’t overdo it here. The goal is to create Products that stand out and look as good as possible, but the picture should still be an accurate representation of what the Products really look like.
Once you’ve finished editing your first photo, you can save the settings you used as a ‘preset’ so you can apply the same edits to the other photos in the set. Creating a preset saves time but create sure to look at each photo individually after applying the preset in case you need to create small adjustments. Presets are great but aren’t always one-size-fits-all.
Side note: If you’re interested in learning more about Lightroom features like Tethered Capture, Presets, and Batch Editing, I collaborated on this guide on how to use Adobe Lightroom for product photography. It goes well with the non-smartphone camera DIY guide to building your own photo studio.
ucts photography in adobe lightroom mobile app, 4 of 4Pin It
screenshot of creating preset for Products photography in adobe lightroom mobile app, 1 of
final Products pic
You can get what you have right now, pictured below, and put it up on your e-commerce website. If you’ve followed the steps in this blog post and your Products are fairly straightforward, they should look great!
Final Products photo of earrings captured by and edited in smartphone camera Pin It
The above picture was captured and edited entirely in a smartphone camera. That’s pretty neat! Of course, you may not always have the time, desire, or ability to capture AND edit pictures yourself.
If your Products is more challenging (for example if it’s reflective, or you’re shooting white Products on white backgrounds), you need additional editing (like backgrounds removal or retouching), or you easy and simply need complete editing in bulk and don’t want to do it by yourself.
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