High-quality photos are part of digital marketing. Presentation plays a significant role in marketing and selling products or services online. One way of getting excellent product photos is by investing in good photography equipment.
However, not every business can invest in a top-end photo studio. There are plenty of options on the market from cameras to tripods that can work well for small business owners. The other option is getting product photo shoots from renowned photo studios such as Squareshot.
In this guide are some basic product photography equipment you will need to start taking amazing photos for your business.
Camera
A quality camera is a must-have if you want to take compelling photos of your products. However, you don’t have to spend over $2000 USD going for full-frame DSLR cameras. Even though it may be a good investment and you will get great photos, it is not worth it for small-time product photography.
You can research on mid-range cameras that will not hurt your pocket. A good option for under $1000 USD is the Sony A6400 or the Canon G series. However, you can also explore using your smartphone. Some of the best smartphones with quality cameras include the iPhone 13 and Google Pixel series.
A Tripod
In the spirit of DIY, you might be tempted to make a makeshift tripod. However, the risk of this is that your camera may tilt mid-shoot. There are also chances you might not get the orientation right during the photoshoot.
A good tripod stand will help you capture high-quality images, especially if your camera has a slow shutter. The thing is that if you try holding the camera, chances are that your images may appear blurry.
There are two types of tripods on the market: flexible, mobile grip, and traditional. A mobile grip tripod is perfect if you are using a smartphone for photography. You can get a good tripod for around $20-30 USD.
Invest in Good Lighting
Natural lighting is the best if you want high-quality images. If you have a nice room that lets in sufficient natural light, you don’t need to buy any lights. Place your product and camera at right angles to each other so that the reflection from the product doesn’t blind your camera.
On the other hand, artificial lighting gives you more control. You can take product photos at any time of the day or night. Go for a set of two lights, otherwise known as the two-light setup. This setup will help you illuminate your product from two sides.
Editing Software and Apps
The icing on the cake is a proper photo-editing app. You can get plenty of freeware editing apps that allow you to make necessary edits to your images. If you prefer editing your photos on your phone rather than a PC, use Snapseed or Adobe Lightroom.
Photoshop is another amazing editing program, but it isn’t free. The good thing about Photoshop is that it has plenty of features and is one of the most used editing apps globally.
Conclusion
This guide should help you get the basic product photography equipment you can use to shoot and edit your product photos. You can upgrade some of the equipment later on, or invest in extra stuff such as a white backdrop or sweep.
