If you are brand new into smartphone photography, chances are
that you're going to end up with product photo looking like this.
How about I'll show you step by step how you can make the same product
look like that. Taken with a smartphone with budget LED lights,
some reflectors and parchment paper.
Let's talk about manual settings.
Let's talk about taking photos in RAW format.
Let's talk about lighting and how you can control the lighting
very easy way. And if you want to take the same photos
with a regular mirrorless camera, it's exactly the same thing.
Just follow along, any camera goes. Ahoj, my name is Zdenka Darula.
If you are into photography and video,
consider subscribing.
Taking photos of highly reflective products can be quite challenging.
By the way, I don't drink this.
Starbucks is not sponsor of today's video.
I chose this product for this tutorial because I like the colors,
I like the design. I like the way it looks.
For this setup I used a brown paper roll, hung it and rolled over the table.
You have to roll the paper out so there is a space between the back
and the product.
It will look seamless and easier to light up.
I also used this plexiglass for reflection on which I place the product.
If you are going to look at the product from your height, from your eye level,
when you are standing in front of the table,
you are not going to see that much over reflection.
That is why you have to place a smartphone in the same height as your product.
I used the tripod and smartphone's clamp.
By the way, all the stuff I'm using in today's video is listed below
the video and a video description.
And now when you take the photo just in automatic mode,
you are going to see a nice reflection.
I took this photo in portrait mode on iPhone 14 Pro.
If you have an Android phone,
a good chance is that you already have manual controls in your native camera app.
You can use that. For me,
I don't have this option, so I chose to use the Moment app.
There are several things I enabled and changed.
I went to settings and enabled grid lines to have the product
perfectly placed in the center, making sure all the lines are straight.
I chose this type of grid as I get those lines just along
the sides of the can. I enabled RAW format.
RAW format holds a lot more data than JPEG
so you get a lot more freedom when you need to edit the photo.
I also enabled a timer for 3 seconds
to get rid of any shake I would create by pressing the shutter button.
I also selected just a default 2x telephoto lens,
and when it comes to manual settings, I'll show that a little bit later.
Now it's time to talk about the lights.
Normally in photography, you would be using flash lights to get the strongest light in
so you can keep very low iso.
In today's video, I'm going to be using RGB LED lights for two reasons.
One reason is that the majority of you
might already have RGB lights if you do a video with smartphones.
And the second reason is that I have an eye condition,
so I'm not allowed to work with flashes anymore, that's it.
I've got many of those LED lights here.
I collected them over the last four years.
What I did first was to block my window from getting any light in.
I want to see exactly where my lights are going.
I chose this long strip light, and I put it at 100% strength.
I selected 5400 Kelvin
which is daytime light, and I placed it to the side.
And now it's time to set the manual settings.
I selected shutter speed 1/48th and ISO/160.
I was looking at the histogram and the corner to have it
sort of in the middle.
I was mainly looking at the image, making sure
the highlights are not too bright, too overblown.
I was micro adjusting the settings here and there throughout the shoot.
I also selected White Balance to reflect what I see in front of me.
I wanted the same colors.
I think it was around 5600 Kelvin.
What I do, I just scroll,
look at the product and compare the colors and keep moving
until you see very similar look.
I took the shots, and as you can see, there
is this very harsh light, a strip light.
This is what you don't want.
You want to soften the light.
You want to create a gradient.
It also covers too many of the letters in a double word,
so you cannot see it.
This needs to be readable.
I could move the light more to the side to make the word double more visible,
but still it's going to be very harsh
and the other side will be completely dark. As this light doesn't have a soft box,
I just grabbed a parchment paper.
Well Christmas just passed, I was baking lots, so
I got some leftovers.
I literally used two layers of the paper to soften the light.
Now the light looked a bit softer, but still it wasn't it.
So I grabbed an old diffuser I have and placed in between the light
and the product, and I took a shot.
Now you can see how the light created this nice gradual reflection.
So this is before just the light alone,
and this is with the paper and diffuser.
You can even use a bedsheet,
anything white see through. The other side of the can
is still very dark though.
There are two things you need to remember.
If you want to block off the light, you will use black board.
If you want to add to light, you will use white board.
And that is exactly what I did.
I grabbed white board, which I bought in a craft store
and placed it on the other side to reflect the light on the can.
The closer you move, the board, the stronger reflection you are going to get.
Now the other side is nicely lit.
I grabbed another RGB light, the smallest one I had.
I lowered the strengths to only 10%.
I wish I could go even lower, but it still worked.
I just wanted a bit of a light on the background to make it pop
and separate it from the product.
I placed the light at the edge of the plexiglass
to get this thin rim and lit up the background.
When you create, forget the rules,
forget the distance, forget the inches, feet and all that.
Use your eyes, your visual and look at it.
Evaluate what you like and what you don't like.
There are no rules,
just focus, just imagination.
Play with the lights, move them backwords, move them forward.
Make it lighter, make it stronger.
See what it does.
All right, back to finishing the project.
The light, which I was using,
is over there right now, was small enough to hide it
behind the can. But when I took photos, I had to really look closely
if it was not showing up somewhere. Always pay attention to details.
Many times you're not going to see it on this little screen.
But once you upload the photo on a computer
and you blow it up on a huge screen and zoom in, oh suddenly
you will see a little pieces of light showing up everywhere.
So always double check, zoom in with your fingers
on the screen, check around if nothing is showing and then continue.
I was happy with the way the sides and background looked,
but the front of the can was still too dark for me.
I didn't see the details. So I grabbed the last RGB light again
adjusted the settings to very low light, just a tiny bit of a light
and I literally pointed at the can from the front,
kind of tilted down and I was just moving a little bit back
and forth to see what kind of reflection I'm getting in a can.
You have to keep an eye on any other reflections and then take a shot.
And there you have it.
This is the result without any edit. RAW photo created straight in the camera.
Then you take it to any editing app and play with it a bit further.
I only did a very minor touch, such as cleaning the edge in the back
and adding a little bit of a vignette, the darker edge and that's all, it's ready
to use it for social media or whatever you would need. Give it a thumbs up
if you find this video helpful
and perhaps learned something new. Don't forget to subscribe for more.
If you have any questions, comments,
leave them below and I'll see you in the next video.
How about we film a commercial?
This commercial? Cau... Ahoj...