yo yo yo crew joey here let's explore in this video
how you can set your product in the right light and shoot a commercial like this one
okay wait wait you're telling me this phone has been dis discontinued okay
so product shoots are without any doubt the perfect creative exercise to do during winter
shitty weather or a global pandemic because you can do it from the comfort of your home
and it's fun and rewarding and it brings joy to your life so let's talk about
arguably the most important component for product photography and filmmaking and that's light
now the hands-down most common setup and some might say the swiss army knife of lighting when
it comes to product photography and filming is top-down lighting you can find it in tech car
luxury goods and food like literally anywhere the key to a good-looking image here is using
as in many other cases a big soft light source it's just very pleasing to any kind of surface
be it skin or a can of milk a box of milk a pack of milk whatever it is now luckily we don't have
to shoot a car and a simple softbox or diffusion sheet will get the job done and most soft boxes
are round but we specifically picked a strip box a rectangular shaped softbox because we're shooting
a product that is highly reflective and in one way or another the light source will reflect on your
product now oftentimes i use a honeycomb grid to avoid spill on the backdrop in fact i'm using one
right now to not light up the back of the room that much but when you use and shoot reflective
surfaces it shows up really quick and i don't know if you can see it here yeah there you go it
just doesn't look good so when you shoot products with high reflections don't use a honeycomb grid
because it will show up in your reflections now next you want to get your glide source as close
as possible to your object just out of frame so that the night light nicely wraps around your
object i've been using the aperture 120d mark ii for the longest time and it's a great light
but i realized that i needed something with more if that's a word in particular when shooting with
the lava probe lens and oh boy i can tell you that's a heck of a lens if you ever get your
hands on it to try it out it's fun but it's an f14 wide open it's f14 and needs a ton of light while
i got this lens decently working on the eba one at 24 frames per second with a dual iso the commodore
definitely needs more light now i get the forza 500 cent from nanite which is a 500 watt led light
which blasts over 46 000 lumens and definitely illuminates the room in fact i'm using it at five
percent right now here as my key light even with double diffusion in this soft box the light gave
me still enough output for this super slow lens but one thing you have to keep in mind with these
powerful lights is the power brick and oh boy for this 500 watt lamp it is a massive power brick
that i actually have here standing right next to me on the ground because it is so big but you can
also power it via v-mount battery so it can be an on-the-go option if you choose to do so if you're
curious this light sets you back thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars and is better priced
arguably than their closest competitor the aputure 600d i will leave links in the description below
now depending what you're shooting you want to pick a fitting surface backdrop and any
other related props for electronics and photo and filmmaking here i usually resort to these
reflective surfaces we've seen this plexiglas possibly a lot in my in my product shots on my
channel or you can get these printed and this is a rubber kind of latex mat reflecting like a
concrete plate to give a little bit of a different vibe for some scenes in this shoot i'm using slate
to just give and reflect the ruggedness whenever you pick props or background you want it to
enhance your image reflect what you're shooting give it you know be it a metaphor or something
tangible that is related to your product oh and especially when you're shooting on reflective
surfaces or with macro lenses every speck of dust is absolutely put in spotlight and visible so you
want to get one of these like little blowers macro fiber towel or this canned air here
it's worth gold i felt kind of silly when i went to amazon and bought stones and air
now to spice up your scene you can introduce additional lights for example to accentuate
certain shapes to fill in dark corners or to introduce some color such back and rim lights
can help isolate your subject from the background and make it really pop and stand out so for this
shoot i was using the pawbo tube 2 6c which is this little rgb www stick led light which is
comes in super handy it's 65 minutes battery time on full output is something to keep in mind when
you shoot product shoots i was reminded this weekend that these shoots take quite a little
bit over a while but you can always charge it with your usb port one cool feature is that
this rear end of the back side of it is magnetic so you can plug it anywhere you really want to
and because they are so small handy you can just also like create some motion with your
light it's just super easy to to navigate and play around with and this is where you
want to get creative and uh just try out things i generally don't plan out my product shoots i just
you know like have some specific shots in mind but like play around a lot maybe that's the
reason why i take longer but i think it's a fun process so just they just go out and enjoy it
another lighting technique for product shoots is to introduce a practical light source practical
light source is light that is visible in your frame and it helps to add dimension depth and
also interest to your composition like what we're doing here right now we're actually using the pavo
tube 30c which is the bigger brother of the 6c here these are certainly specialty lights that
you oftentimes actually see you being used as a practical light for example in music videos but
you can totally use them as your key light source or as a rim light or as just as a fill light to
add more atmosphere to your to your scene what i really dig about them is they are actually battery
powered and the battery brick must be so big it it lasts for two hours at full output i'm running
them at one percent right now one percent uh brightness and you know like they've been running
for for at least four hours right now already now question i have and now it was not the only one
is are they water resistant because they are housed in uh in this plastic tube and amanda
ferreira on his channel his review pointed out the power button actually has a rubber cover over it
so why would you put a rubber cover over it if there is not some water resistance
i maybe you got to try it out with a lightsaber fight and rain or something like that
though the buttons on the back are a little bit flimsy this is where you dial in your settings it
actually has the manual fully printed on the back of the light it's really handy and you can see all
the effects that you can dial in now with a nan link remote controller you can control all the
lights from the forza 500 to all the power tubes which i actually did a lot where i just posted up
next to the product with my ipad which transmitted from my commodore with the image and then i dialed
in the lights with a remote control in terms of their dimness and brightness and colors
right as i was standing right next to the shot so so i could frame it up as i wanted uh super
super handy totally recommend if you get a set of these lights definitely helpful to have this
the power tubes 30c come in a kit of two and in a nice carrying bag and it sets you back 559 cash
a more unconventional way in lighting your product is using actually a monitor or tv screen as your
backdrop and i've been seeing more and more videos being shot like that so i had to try
it out myself and i can tell you it's actually incredibly easy to set up and the output the
results that you get are just my blog i'm really happy and totally encourage you trying it out
the idea is actually inspired by these new led sound stages like the volume that they
use for the mandalorian and i would bet a lot of money that this is the future of filmmaking
and it's an innovation like green screen has changed the industry so
if you haven't heard about that just watch the bts for the mandalorian it's
obviously at home you don't have the space nor the technology and 3d rendering power possibly
not the know-how i definitely don't have it so i stick to a simple locked up shot and then use my
tv as the backdrop put some lights on the side to just like accentuate the rims of my phone
of the phone here and a top down light and then just pulled up a very interesting looking imagery
that goes along with the message that i wanted to communicate with this spec ad and those images i
just pulled from today's sponsor storyblocks what a smooth transition was that so storyblocks has a
library of over 1 million stock assets from music images 4k video to motion templates i wanted to
pay homage to the phone's name hydrogen which is the most abundant element in the universe so
i typed in galaxy and sun and whatnot and found within seconds like some very visually arresting
imagery that i could try out and this is the key just try out things and see what matches and what
what is compelling as well as visually complementary to your to your subject
and and try it out now with an unlimited all access plan for individual creators
or larger creative teams you get unlimited downloads from the library royalty free for
both personal use and commercial use check out storyblocks with a link in the description below
now if you don't want to use your tv to color and light your background you can simply use
rgb lights to illuminate your backdrop now my setup i use the top light to just blast on the
subject at 5600 kelvin and then position the tube lights so that they only illuminate the backdrop
i actually used some foam some dark foam board to block out the light so that they don't spill on my
on my object here and for the backdrop i used the seamless paper in charcoal gray which i found
actually working best to reflect colors and then just using your power tubes to either create one
seamless color stream or mix and match and create a nice gradient again it's your playing field just
pick the colors that reflect your product well and then just try out things what what visually really
pops out and works for you keep experimenting this is the fun and rewarding part of shooting products
all right now it's on you go out and try things and don't get frustrated if something doesn't
work out it's normal experiment more often than not shots that i haven't planned out at all
magically come together it's a fun process just you know go with the flow i'll leave
product links in the description below and if you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up also if you
haven't done so already consider subscribing and joining the notification crew it's free
why not and as always thanks so much for watching have a good morning have a good night whenever and
wherever you are around this beautiful planet bye bye thank you joey helms in tentacle for sending
this awesome audio gear i see all my mixers in the field using this stuff so very excited to
try it out i also never win anything so i'm very happy that i finally won something they sent me
two of these trackies and one of these sinkies for time code they also sent me some necessary cables
thank you joey thank you tentacle i cannot wait to try this stuff out