Photography Day in The Workshop

Today I spent a good few hours photographing some wallets that had never made it into the shop, also a few that needed an updated image. Slowly but surely I shall get through ’em all. Not much is needed for high quality images, just a good light source (I prefer soft lighting), good focus, and setting up your camera for the right exposure. In the photo above you can see the simple setup I use for product shots.  A large softbox close in and slightly above, a nice custom built wood plank set for the backdrop and on the right (unseen) is a white wall that acts as a great reflector to help lighten up the shadows. Usually I set up a reflector on a stand, but the wall serves this purpose quite nicely. I am using an old Canon 5D with a zoom lens. I attach it to the flash with a sync cable, and the flash is plugged into the wall outlet to allow me to shoot quickly with enough power. Usually I take between 30 to 50 shots of each product in each color. Then after eyeballing each one on the computer – I narrow down the good shots with the best focus and framing. From there it is several hours of adjusting the white balances, exposure, framing, and cleaning up minor details like those unruly dust particles that love to pop out on black leather.