I don't drink coffee but I really like the smell of coffee
sorry good to see you all again this year I found myself shooting more and more product videos for
my channel and the shots that I usually felt most intriguing are these macro shots so as I ramped up
in this niche of filmmaking I noticed a few tools and accessories that are key in getting clean
and unique images that make your product shots standout so let's quickly run through those so
first of all if you want to shoot macro images you want a macro lens we've already discussed this but
the glass you put in front of your camera is much more important than the camera itself if you're
currently in market for a macro lens you want to pick one with a one-to-one reproduction ratio
this means that at the closest focus distance the image is the same size on the sensor as it is in
reality in simple terms you can get dang close I actually recently invested in quite a unique macro
lens that you may have seen floating around in the Internet and this is this probe lens by lawa two
things that make this lens really special aside from the fact that it has this very very unique
kind of look first it is a wide-angle macro lens so you can get really close to your subject but
still get a lot in off your background this means you can create quite a unique look and make your
images really stand out on the other side given it's very unique form factor you can get it into
places that are unreachable with a normal lens and allowing you to get even more unreal shots
and in fact it actually works particularly well for food shots next you need a fitting
surface and background to place your products on and you want to pick something that helps
the product to visually standout and it can be either something slick and clean or something
that has some interesting texture the good news is that you either have already the fitting surface
at home or you can get some for very cheap I've been trying out quite a few different surfaces
recently I started with these a critic plates now I just got these rolls which is a little bit more
of a matte look which I actually prefer over the acrylic plates they're too reflective and even to
these kind of fake concrete made out of latex it's a kind of a desk mat I already recommend checking
out the video that Caleb a DSLR video shooter made on the topic of surfaces and backgrounds
for product shots I will link up the video here in the info card so now that you've placed your
product nicely in front of your lens you want to put it in the right light and there are two
different setups that I generally go after setup one is a big soft even light source that nicely
wraps around to your subject it's kind of a beauty shot while you can definitely get complicated in
your lighting setup I found that one big soft light source is more than enough I personally
use the aperture 120 Demark - which is a very popular and powerful light mounted the light
dome - a diffuser around it but really any larger diffused light source will do it for you on the
other side you can get experimental and use a smaller handheld RGB LED light source to give
your images a unique look not only through the colors but in particular through the motion let
me show you product LED light source it's as easy as a simple scanning motion that creates this very
abstract stylistic look especially in the macro world for my last product review I use these tiny
LED strips by spiffy but going forward I would like to use my aperture M C which just came in
the mail to do it day I'm using it here as like a fill light incredible little powerful light
I'm very very impressed I will I will leave the long links to all products that I'm using in this
video down in the description below so in case you want to check them out and talking about motion
in order to bring that extra dimension to your shots you want to use something that allows you
slow controlled motions that can be a motorized slider a gimbal or a full motion control system
since you're shooting macro every single move every little shake is exaggerated hence going
handheld is absolutely a no-go and even manually operated sliders are extremely tricky so when moza
reached out and offered me to try out their new slide pod which is a two and one slider
and monopod super weird and unique I was obviously very curious on how it holds up in this very very
unique use case of macro product shot so the main premise of this very innovative motorized slider
which has a travel distance of 28 centimeters and a fairly respectable payload is its versatility
not only can you create horizontal movement but also diagonal and even vertical since it's
like a two and one slider and monopod and those movements can be very well leveraged in throttle
macro shots now after using it for a while let me quickly share with you what I like about it and
what can be improved specifically in the context of macro filmmaking on the plus side this slide
pod can move at various kind of different speeds and this is very important in the case of macro
filming because it can go incredibly slow another benefit is that there are no rails in front of it
so if you are taking a flyover shot over your product at an angle like that your camera will
not pick up any rails in front of it so you can easily go above your subject and then make this
slide I move over it and frankly I also dig the look and feel and fee it's this carbon-fiber kind
of looking it's a very cool design and for the first iteration of this product it feels very
robust I really dig that now to the not-so-great stuff in this context if you are going above 10%
of its speed you will start noticing wobbling in your images and this is likely to to the motor
construction it's only visible if you're using macro lenses but it basically prohibit to you
from faster motions with in this macro scenario and then I wish it would integrate actually
better with their other products the Mozie air to gimbal and the follow focus and the sniper they
just don't talk to each other you can set them all out together but there is no way to set up
motions and program motions all together it would make an incredibly powerful motion control system
for a really good price Satie's this integration yet it is not existent yet so hopefully that's
coming soon so overall because of the wobbling that is fairly noticeable at times this slider
is not ideal for product macro shots though it is a very interesting product and I'm looking forward
to trying it out and shooting b-roll outside with a wider normal kind of lens if you want to learn
more about the other use cases for the slight part there just search for it on youtube there are
loads of reviews out there now in my opinion the set up is really the key for professional-looking
product shots from here you can just have fun and get creative ask yourself what part of the product
you want to highlight start with the closest shots and work yourself wider and wider again
like focus on the outstanding features of that product how can you how you can you bring those
to life and put them in the right light in an interesting way now that you got all your footage
imported to your editing program cobbled together a sequence color graded add some sound effects and
then the icing on top of it is six song and boom you got your nice product b-roll for your videos
now if you're off shooting macro product videos now or you already have some please share those
in the comments below I would love to see them and that's it thanks so much for watching I hope you
enjoyed it hope it was useful please give it a like and consider subscribing to my channel
and hitting that notification bill as always have a good morning have a good night wherever
and whenever you are around this beautiful planet thank you bye bye it's dance time