9 Tips to Improve Your eCommerce Product Photography

ECommerce is driven by product photos. From online ads to product enlistment, striking product photos help build a successful eCommerce store. If you are someone who’s just starting with eCommerce and don’t want to hire a professional team for your product photography, these 9 tips will help you achieve your goals. 

Get Better Camera Lens

When it comes to eCommerce, the camera itself isn’t as important as having great camera lenses. You don’t need to get tens of them. But, in order to get better photos, be mindful to have the best ones with stabilization built-in. If you prefer third-party lenses, like Sigma, go for their ART lenses. 

If you are all about eCommerce photography, consider having prime lenses that come with fixed focal lengths like 50mm, 85mm, 105mm. Prime lenses have a much larger maximum aperture than their zoom counterparts. This means that they produce a shallower depth of field which is the technical term for blurry backgrounds.

For some eCommerce owners, the latest top-tier lenses for photography projects may not seem affordable. Luckily, old lenses which are still in mint condition can also be bought. As the cameras and lenses don’t go obsolete after only a couple of years, you’ll find lenses that are 50 years old working on your camera absolutely fine. 

Learn About Your Products

Having an extensive practical education about your product can help you get better eCommerce photos. An eCommerce store selling clawfoot tubs should have information about the environments that their customers put their tubs in. The same goes for eCommerce stores selling outdoor apparel. These kinds of products are better captured in an outside setting, to highlight their use or purpose.

If you photograph the products in an environment that doesn’t suit them, your customers will not be compelled to buy. 

Improve The Lighting

Don’t worry if you still couldn’t have a studio lighting setup for your eCommerce product photography. Because natural light is preferred for eCommerce photography. 

Natural lighting

Put your products beside a window that lets through an ample amount of light. Set your aperture to the maximum and set the shutter speed accordingly for a crisp image. If the light is too harsh and the window isn’t frosted, consider putting a paper of white curtain over it to soften the lights. 

The problem with ambient lighting is the shadows that you can’t control. Due to being the only source of light, the shadows that the objects project can be too prominent to be neglected. Place cardboard along the window to make the shadows as subtle as possible.

On the shooting day, make sure the lighting is consistent because there’s so much that you can do in post-processing.

Studio Lighting

Have at least two sources of diffused strobe lights in a studio setup. One of which will serve as your key light, and the other as your back light. When choosing lights, be careful of using different brands and models for the same studio as different frequencies can produce infringements.

As the lighting can be adjusted and placed according to your preference, you can shoot for hours without needing to worry about the daylight being absent. 

Choose a Backdrop

Different products call for different backdrops. To shoot a black laptop, it’s necessary to have a backdrop that isn’t too dark, but for shooting white and bright products, having a dark backdrop will certainly help. The color and texture of the backdrops are only critical if you’re shooting in a studio environment. Though, when you are considering the natural background for a product shoot, this discussion doesn’t hold much value. 

While shooting in closed confinement with natural backgrounds, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) can be helpful. If your product is too huge to move around, try placing a draft image of the same onto the virtual environment that you are trying to have your shoot on. That way, you’ll already have an idea about where to start.   

Learn About Angles and Framing

A good eCommerce photography gives a 360-view of the products offered. That is why angles and correct framing are important. Although the product angles are quite generic for eCommerce, you can experiment with the lighting and background angles to produce a more engaging image. 

Framing is also an equally important element in eCommerce. As a photographer, you are required to inform your customers about how the products fit their home environment. If you choose to have a natural background, your potential of experimenting with framing grows manifolds. 

Consider Stabilization

Choose a faster shutter speed or take the help of a sturdy tripod to stabilize your camera. If your hands aren’t steady enough, your best bet is to go for a tripod that isn’t too heavy. Heavy tripods are suitable for landscape photography where you need to defy the winds. With eCommerce, lighter tripods are equally effective and save you a lot of money.

As discussed before, top-tier lenses also come equipped with in-built stabilization which helps you shoot in an environment where lighting is not as ample as you’d like.

Learn Post-Processing

Removing the background, enhancing the image, and manipulating the objects can essentially be done through post-processing. As eCommerce is a field where your images drive most of your sales, it’s quite important to have extensive knowledge about post-processing. 

While it’s best to be knowledgeable about Photoshop and Lightroom, there are many similar post-processing software that you can take help of. 

Be Informed About Depth of Field

Depth of field is a physical phenomenon that dictates the range of focus. When using a lens with a higher aperture, like f1.4 or f1.8, the depth of field decreases significantly, ensuring the subject is separated from the background. But a too shallow depth of field may also be the cause of the whole product not being in focus. Choose the sweet post according to your creative imagination and requirement. 

A full-frame body (FX) promotes a more creamy blurred background (bokeh) than an AFS-C (DX) camera. If you have a full-frame body, consider having lenses designed for full-frames to avail the benefit of a shallower depth-of-field.

Understand How to Focus Stack

Focus stacking is a practice that’s done in post-processing to achieve the same level of background bokeh without jeopardizing the subject focus. Having a broader subject, like a set of Russian dolls will require you to have a narrower aperture setting to have all of it on focus. But to achieve that, you’d need to sacrifice the depth of field. 

Focus stacking helps you achieve the same amount of bokeh in addition to having your whole product in focus. To achieve that, you need to set manual focus on your lens and click multiple photos of the product from the same position with different focus points and post-process with Adobe Lightroom, which offers a dedicated setting for focus stacking. 

The Bottom Line

These 9 tips will help you take better photos for your client or your eCommerce store. Going forward with eCommerce, always consider having the best possible lens that your budget permits and having the best lighting setups for your studio. Educate yourself about focus modes, shutter speed, aperture, and post-processing for the best outcomes.