More Product Shots? - A Photographer's Fluke

I've had the pleasure for the past few years to do product testing of both prototype and production samples for JAYS (www.jays.se); a Swedish company that consistently puts out a high-quality product. I recently got their first ever over-the-head headphone model (they usually focus on in-ear models); the c-JAYS. They really are something else, and do sound pretty neat. I'll link to my review on www.head-fi.org/forums when it's completed. But Nick, I thougt that this was a photography blog! I know...I know...

Well, for the review I thought it was a good time to use my macro box for the second time (next posting: jewelry photography). It wasn't too challenging to put together, apart from challenges of finding the right materials, including a clean seamless background. I also put some hooks in mine to be able to give some definition to jewelry hanging. It actually worked quite well for headphone cables as well. Rather than just lying them down, hanging them gave the cables some interesting depth to the pictures. I really wasn't thinking of posting them until I just did some editing on them this morning before sending it out to the product manager at JAYS who loved them. They really did have an interesting texture and feeling to them. I'm not usually that interested in product shots, but with this success and the jewelry it's really quite fun to do, and it seems I have a knack for it.

Only two pictures that I would say are blog worthy; at least so far. This next one is my favorite. Something about its texture just rocks.



[Geek photography stuff below]

For the first set of product shots I had a Sigma 70mm f/2.8 MACRO lens at my disposal. That was truly an astounding lens, although for the price, it's essentially a 70mm f/2.8 prime with built-in extension tubes. I may head back to it though just for its sharpness in everyday use. It also has great colours; even for a Sigma! From my experience, usually third party lenses lack a good amount of colour, but not this one. It may in fact be an inherent characteristic of macro lenses. It sure did focus slow though, and the hood is a screw-on, preventing easy lens cap application and increases the cost of filters as it's a larger diameter when using the hood. I wouldn't be surprised that there's a little bit of vignetting as well unless it's a slim version (which is even more expensive).

I'll talk more on that lens with my next jewelry post. I used one main lens for this shoot; the 70-210mm f/4, which has a surprisingly decent macro maginification for a telephoto. It's also sharp. Both pictures were shot at f/7 at 1/160th of a second. This was just enough for my radio trigger's max sync speed, and at a small enough aperture to get sharpness all throughout the headphones, while hopefully blurring out some of the less than ideal seamless. The box had its two sides cut out, filled with a waxpaper-like sheet on the left and right sides with two speedlights at 1/4th power to give some good recycling times. The macro box is ideal for this work to get a huge light source in order to ensure that there's no hotspots or apparent light sources. It worked out quite well, and I'll try to get a video up next time I use the box, or its next bretheren.

Cheers everyone!