Shooting Still Object Techniques

How to shoot still objects at home.

Photo Tip Friday April 25, 2014

So you want to shoot still objects, such as jewelry, art pieces, statues or some other products, and naturally want to make the best possible photos.

Do you need special equipment to shoot this project?
As a matter of fact tools and equipment are there to help us finish our job faster and easier, but more importantly are the techniques. In this tutorial I am going to show you how to use simple household equipment to shoot still objects. Of course if you have a bigger project you can always rely on our rental equipment and rent the tools to make the shoot much easier.

For this article I am going to use a Nikon DSLR camera, Nikon AF 50mm f1.4 lens, a tripod, a regular flashlight, and this statue.

Shooting still objects with Light Painting Technique

First things first, we are going to use the flashlight as our source of light. So get ready by turning off all the lights, turn on your flashlight, and use a grey card to make a custom White Balance for this light. I set the statue on a table and my camera on a tripod. I composed the image the way I want, pre-focused the lens and set the camera to Manual Focus to keep the focus locked.

Now the fun begins! I set my camera to BULB mode, ISO 200, f11, attached a shutter release (or set the wireless shutter trigger), turned off the light, turned on my flash light, released the shutter and started to paint the statue with flash light. I started at the top and moved downward for 10 seconds. Here is the result:

Not bad, but I wanted to be more creative and started to play with different angles and even shining the flash light from behind the statue to the front to create a new dimension.

Then I changed the background to white as I want to make some High key images with dramatic shadows, so I painted light only on one side of the subject. It looks just like there was a sun beam hitting the statue!

Then I wanted to try another subject and I chose my coffee mug:

The possibilities are endless and you can have lots of fun taking photos of items around your house as you experiment and learn more about creative lighting.

If these experiments generate interest to learn even more, we are going to have a Studio Product Shooting Workshop. Be sure to check out the course description for more info.

Ted and the Omnilargess Team
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