Ingenious Tip for Taking Professional Looking Product Shots on the Cheap with Your Smartphone

The guys over at HouseholdHacker have come up with and shared a cheap product photography trick that’s incredibly simple but yields awesome results. And all you need to take advantage of it is some sort of reflective surface (they used a glossy black trashcan…), a computer monitor, and a smartphone camera!

There’s really not much to it, but the results are impressive given how absurdly simple it is. Just set up your glossy platform in front of the monitor, pull up a photo of some great bokeh on the screen, and set up an LED lamp if you need some more lighting.

When you line up your shot, you’ll get something that you don’t typically see smartphones spit out:

The technique is incredibly simple and literally anybody with a smartphone, a monitor and some sort of glossy surface can take advantage to up their product photography game right away.

This will work even better as individual bits of gear get upgraded, and it’s a great trick to show your kids who are just getting into photography, or your friends who sell a lot of stuff on eBay but never give much thought to the photos.

You know they’re gonna ask you for photo tips (for the umpteenth time) the next time you see them… and since they didn’t listen to you the last twelve times you told them about the rules of composition, you might as well share a neat trick instead.

(via Gizmodo)