Photography Tips: How to Photograph Glass

The main goal of product photography is to make the product look good and desirable, regardless of its material properties. Glass, which is both translucent and reflective, can be one of the most challenging subjects to shoot; when you are shooting glass, getting some good looking reflections is the key to producing an image that will flatter the subject best, but it is not always as easy as it looks.

Glass Hanging Heart by DayDreamGifts

1.Start with your setup. Make sure you have a lot of light and try not to interfere by using too much color.

2. Use a lot of white in your setting or backdrop and reduce the amount the amount of darkness as much as possible. By doing this you allow any unused light to navigate towards the glass and bring out the expression you're trying to give.

3. Try to use as much light as you can from whatever source possible. This will enhance the object giving it a more cynical look.

4. Add an extra detail to the class, like a ribbon around the top of a jar. This adds a little effect to the image and gives the viewer more to see. Try not to make it a large amount of detail; but by adding something small you will create the effect of a bigger picture and the object will come more to life.

Seascape Drinking Glasses by Eccentic Ella

5. Find a way to reflect light through the glass. This is important as you want to try and get as much endurance out of the light into the glass to express an emotion of the image and create a lightened mood. The reflection also allows the glass to seem more detailed and more attractive.

6. Keep your setup small so less light can escape. The larger the setup, the more light you will need.

7. If you use a dark room, get as many lights from different perspectives as you can, but don't over do it because the surrounding darkness can create a tone of mood for the glass, seemingly making the picture more vibrant.

source: wikihow.com

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How to Make Good Indoor Photos

In order to share all of your wonderful crafts with others (and hopefully sell them) you need to know how to photograph crafts for online posting. A good craft photograph can make all the difference in whether or not your craft sells or is ignored.

In this series of posts we'll give you valuable guidelines for making quality photos.

Location:

The very first step in photographing your crafts is picking the location to photograph them. There are a couple of places you should never take craft photographs:

• Never photograph your crafts on your bed (unless of course you are photographing a quilt) 
• Never photograph your crafts with a cluttered background (no curious cats, random yarn, or dinner plates please) 
• Never photograph your crafts in the dark

Now, on to where you should photograph your crafts:

• Photograph your crafts in a well-lit area 
• Photograph your crafts with a plain contrasting background (white for dark crafts, black or brown for light crafts)

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Photography Tips ~ 5 Tips to Take Great Product Photos with your Smartphone

If you don’t yet have the funds to invest in camera equipment, buy yourself time by learning how to take great product photos with your smartphone.

Smartphones have drastically evolved over the last few years to include cameras advanced enough to snap professional quality images, especially for viewing on the web. But just because your smartphone can take high quality pictures doesn’t mean it’s going to turn out perfectly the first time around.

Here are some simple guidelines on how to improve the product photos you take on your phone:

1. Get Close

Many cell phone cameras, especially the iPhone, really start to shine when you bring them in close to your subject. The small sensor provides a relatively wide depth of field  so you can get entire objects in focus where cameras with bigger sensors and longer lenses would have trouble.

When getting close, you can also usually have more control over the lighting of your subject. Are bright patches in the background of your composition throwing off the camera's meter and making your subject dark? Get closer and block it out all together. Small detail shots can be quite effective if done right.

2. Crop, Don't Zoom

Many smartphone cameras offer a digital zoom function, but you're almost always best served by pretending it doesn't exist. Even in the liveview preview, you'll be able to see how noticeably your images degrade the second you start to "zoom." The camera is simply extrapolating what's already there and basically guessing what the image looks like. It gets ugly fast.

When you're cropping, however, you're actually just sampling pixel info that was actually recorded. Many smartphones have 8-megapixels of resolution and sometimes more. That means you can crop substantially and still have plenty of resolution left for display on the web. And the lack of gross upscaling artifacts will help mask the fact that it was taken with a phone.

3. Edit, Don't Filter

If you want your images to be unique, the last thing you should do is paint them with the same filters that literally millions of other people are using. For the record, I'm not anti-Instagram. I think the sharing element is fantastic, but the pre-determined "retro" washes are played out. And that goes for every other app slinging the same stuff. 

4. Ditch The Flash

The problem with many smartphone flashes is that they don't actually, well, flash. They're glorified LED flashlights, thrust into a duty they're not fully prepared for. They are bright, but the color temperature can be gross and they miss one of the primary duties of a strobe: freezing the action in the frame. The actual "flash" duration is much too long, so you end up with an image that's both blurry and terribly-lit. Not to mention how close it is to the lens, which makes those horrible demon eyes almost a given.

5. Don't Forget The Rules Of Photography

This is by far the most important suggestion of all. The rules for taking a good picture don't change when you switch between cameras. Just because the camera can also make calls, doesn't mean you should ignore everything you know about balanced composition and expressive lighting. If you need to keep the rule of thirds or golden ratio layover on your screen at all times to help remind you, certainly turn it on.

source: popphoto.com

image source: misi.co.uk

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