Photography Tip: Why Use A Lightbox?

One of the most common challenges we run into when gathering content for a client's site is, how to get the photographic content suitable for publishing.  Most of the time, we're dealing with product images, so this article will mainly talk about that.

Many of our clients prefer to do their own photography to save dollars on their web site, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to save some dollars.  But when the quality of the photography compromises the performance of the site, we have to do something to improve it.

In many cases, we've helped the client improve their own photography by sharing a few simple tips with them to help them shoot better photos for their sites.  You don't have to be a camera geek to shoot good photos.  You just need to understand a few simple things.

Your Camera

To begin with, it doesn't take a super high-end camera to shoot good photographs for your web site.  What you need to shoot images appearing on enlarged art prints is quite different from what you need for images that are almost always going to be reduced for publishing.  A few things are necessary, though, such as:

• "better" optics,
• at least 5mp of resolution,
• ability to override automatic exposure settings, 
• white balance controls, and
• for close-ups, a macro focus feature.

To find out more about all these features, watch for future articles in this series.

Controlling the Environment Around Your Subject

One of the first things you have to do for better product images is to get control of your shooting environment.  That doesn't have to be difficult or expensive.  To shoot a good product image, you need to get control of two things:

• The subject's background
• The lighting around the subject

The biggest favor you can do yourself is to buy or build a light box (also referred to as a "soft" box) big enough to fit your largest subjects.  The second is to use external lighting in conjunction with the light box.  This will eliminate about 70% of your problems right from the get-go.

We'll write more about the "how" of light boxes and lighting in future articles, but here's the "why"... the problems that are created by shooting with flash alone or in available light.

Problems Caused by Your Camera's Flash

This is a photo shot with the camera's flash as its only light source.  It's okay, it's nice and sharp.  Assuming the background is supposed to be white, the color is just a tad on the blue side, but that can be corrected with a white balance adjustment.

But there are several problems. 

Problem 1: Uneven lighting.  The front of the subject is very bright and perhaps even slightly overexposed, while everything else is underexposed.

Problem 2:  Hot spots.  You can see very bright dots of light in some places on the subject.  In some images, those hot spots can consume a large portion of the subject and make it very difficult to see.

Problem 3: Sharp, heavy shadows.  And there's that unsightly blob of a shadow at the bottom of the image that is caused by the end of the camera's lens.

So, maybe it's better to shoot in available light?  Somewhat better, but most available light options have their problems, too.

Problems Caused by Direct Sunlight

Here is a photo of the same subject, shot in direct, bright sunlight.

This is better, the color looks more natural (although that depends a lot on how your camera's white balance is set), and the subject is more evenly lit.  But you can still see problems with sharp, heavy shadows, and very bright hot-spots.

The conclusion: any direct lighting is going to cause glare and undesirable shadows.

A lot of people will point out that shooting under overcast skies is much better, as the clouds will diffuse the sunlight and soften the glare and shadows.  This is true.  The only drawback with this is, how many days out of the year do you have these perfect conditions?

Problems Caused by Room Lighting

Here's another idea a lot of people try: shooting in available room lighting.  If there's enough light to see the subject, there should be enough light to photograph it, right? 

Not!

Here is photo was shot with multiple available light sources, a nearby floor lamp, overhead room lighting, and a little indirect sunlight coming in from a nearby window.

This created some interesting effects!  Interesting and problematic:

Problem 1:  All three different sources have different color temperatures, which made finding the right white balance nearly impossible.

Problem 2:  Often with room lighting, you're limited on how you can position the lighting with respect to your subject.  In this case, most of the lighting was more behind the subject, so not only do we see those funny shadows in front of the subject, there isn't much light hitting the front of the subject, which is the part we're trying to see.

Problem 3:  There just isn't enough light overall.  The majority of this image is underexposed.  While this can be compensated for somewhat by increasing the exposure, if there isn't enough light hitting the subject, that will only go so far.

Problem 4: While the glare is not as intense, it still is quite well defined.

Why You Need a Light Box

Here is the mug shot in a light box.  A light box has many advantages over any of the previous lighting methods discussed above:

• You have control of the color temperature of the light
• You can control where the light goes
• The light box diffuses the light to soften glare and shadows, and helps to spread the light for even lighting.

Notice the shadows are almost non-existent, the mug is evenly exposed all around it, the white balance is even throughout, and the glare is softened considerably.  The lights can easily be moved a little more to possibly eliminate the glare entirely.  And you can get these same exact results any day of the year, because of all the environmental factors you now can easily control.

Convinced yet?

In a future article, we'll discuss how to make a very easy-to-build light box of your own for about $30-40, and for those of you would rather just buy a light box, some great places to shop for one.