Lighting Tips: How to Shoot Killer Product Photography at Home

We’re not entirely sure why, but product photography tutorials are coming hard and fast lately. So in case this DIY lightbox wasn’t good enough, and 360° product photography isn’t your thing, here’s a great tutorial that will show you how to capture killer reflective product shots on a sea of black.

The video tutorial was created by London-based photographer and cinematographer Tom Watts, and using the simple setup shown in the video he was able to capture a bunch of high-gloss product photos like this one:

The setup is simple. First, Watts placed a glass table in front of a black backdrop, and added some black material underneath the glass to get a perfect reflecting surface. Then, he set up a big softbox as his key light, a fresnel kicker with some barn doors as a rim light, and a simple square “reflector” (read: cardboard cake base) on the other side for some fill.

You can see the whole setup in this screenshot from the video:

Using this, he’s able to get these product shots on all black with a great reflection to really make the final image pop. The results speak for themselves:

Check out the full tutorial up top to have the lighting setup explained step-by-step, and then subscribe to Watts’ YouTube channel for more videos like this one.

(via ISO 1200)