Here’s a really quick tutorial with graphics on how to set up a 3 point lighting scheme:
http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/three-point/
Another site with a good tutorial on product shot lighting:
In fact, this site has several good tutorials on shooting products and still lifes (still lives??). Most of it is to promote purchasing their products, but you should be able to cull some nuggets out of them.
The other type of product shot we can discuss is the “lifestyle” shot. Usually this includes a person or persons using the product and showing just how wonderful life is now that they have it. This is a very powerful technique in that it hooks into the emotions far more than a simple product shot. Envy and jealousy are pretty powerful… “I want that, I want to be like that…”
The other common type of lifestyle shot is more of utility – how is the product used. Seeing its functionality in action. So, it may be that you see a sports car zooming down a windy mountain road, or the Ikea wooden bowl is loaded up with a zesty salad or luscious, juicy fruit. We often see packaging placed next to the product itself – a coke can sitting beside an icy, dewy glassful of it.
Magazine ads more often show lifestyle shots, catalogues tend to show isolated hero shots.
As you gather your samples for the product discussion on Tuesday, you’ll probably notice lots of them feature the product as “hero”. These are usually shots that are made from slightly below horizontal, giving the product a grander scale. Hero products are often shot on a bare or minimal space. The depth of field (focal length) is often so that the product is clearly in focus, but surrounding or background objects are blurred to the point of being undefined. Another technique is often with the “halo” – lighting the product so that it has a “heavenly” glow about it. I’ve also seen a few variations on this… the “light emitting” product… usually from an opened box, and what I’d call the laser or sparkle lighting effect where there is an exaggerated light bounce or sparkle on the product.
Take note of the angle, lighting and scale of the product when critically viewing these product shots.
This is the syllabus for the Spring 2012 course:
Digital Imaging and Video Spring 2012 