Taking Photographs Of My Wifes Spa Products

[bkkmick]

Hi

I tried taking some photographs of some spa products my wife makes and the result was pretty poor (I have one of those Nikon S6 compact digital cameras - the quality is generally poor!).

I remember some time ago reading the there's something called a 'white box' or a name similar to that into which you put the item to photograph it.

Does anyone know where I can buy a 'white box'?

Thanks

Mick

[canuckamuck]

I have had to make a home made white box on the fly before, it’s not that tough. It would be best if I knew what the size of the products generally are and how much reflective (chrome-like) surfaces there are. Without knowing this however, here is what has worked for me.

You will need some kind of large card or board that is stiff and white. In the west I would use foam core. I think that plastic board they use to make signs with here will work. If your products are all generally under 20 cm then here’s what I would suggest.

Cut one piece of board to be about 50cm square, this is your bottom piece. Cut four more pieces for walls to the box, 50cm wide and about 20 to 30cm high. Tape them together with duct tape or similar, try not to put colored or dark tape inside the box, you want it all to be as white as possible. You will need to put some very smooth white surface at the bottom so you don’t see a pattern. A large piece of white paper will do. This is your basic whitebox.

Now you will need something to diffuse the light. Wax paper can actually work, I don’t know if you can find it here. Cover the top of the box with the wax paper or substitute and cut a hole in the middle that is about 10 cm around. If your objects are quite small, you can make it smaller. It is the reflective items that are effected most by this hole. The more reflective, the better it is if the hole remains small. If there are no reflective surfaces you might be able to lose the diffuser all together, depending on your light source. At this point you will need a light source. The sun is an awesome light source but in Thailand the light is hard and straight down which won’t work for you. It is best to wait for a bit of cloud cover.If you have an external flash you can use it to bounce light off another piece of white card instead of using daylight

It is tricky to learn how to shoot through the hole and how to place the objects, but you should be able to modify what I have described to get what you want.

Your pictures will likely come out a bit flat. You can fix this in Photoshop very easily by adjusting the levels. Or if you don’t use Photoshop your camera software might have similar adjustments.

Another problem you might have is getting too close for the minimum focusing distance of the camera. Find out how close you can get and keep back a bit from that. Use a tripod.

I have successfully done this for a commercial clients, so it can work and it is an inexpensive project.