Product photography and images
For those of you selling a tangible product online the issue of product photography will no doubt be something you have had to deal with. The importance of product photography is one of those things that is so often overlooked by internet merchants. When faced with the task of uploading an inventory to a selling platform merchants will either resort to the CD full of jpegs that their wholesaler sends them or worse still, copies images of the same product from other merchants.
The desperation to have the entire inventory uploaded and online often comes ahead of quality assurance when it comes to product photos. In the world of web 2.0 and intense competition it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure that you have good quality and clear shots of your products. We have consistently found success in marketing products through the use of clean, crisp images of the products and a varied selection of images of each product. Competitors selling identical products to us are losing out because their images are poor quality, dull and don’t give the customer enough information.
How have we achieved such good product images?
All of our product shots are taken ‘in house’ using a selection of photography gear we bought online. The equipment includes a second hand Digital SLR camera, two high quality lenses, lights, a cube tent and some reflectors. We probably spent just under £2000 on the set up which has been an excellent investment, not least because the second hand lenses and camera body could (if we wanted) be liquidated on ebay for pretty much what we paid for them.
Once the photos come off the camera we put them into a well known image editing software to clean them up and re size them. Images for your website will need to be compressed, which is going to affect the quality, using a professional piece of software to do this is essential to guarantee good results. Adobe Photoshops ’save for web’ feature is ideal. The fact remains that the better your product images are the more products you are going to sell. Your clean and clear images can be another positive edge you have over the competition. Don’t be put off by the high upfront costs involved in either buying the gear or commissioning a freelance photographer. If you are serious about selling online it will pay not to be penny wise and pound senseless when it comes to product images for your online selling platforms.
Could not agree more, as product photographers, we try to instill to our clinets that the more they show potential customers the better, there is not hands on the product on the web, you must provide highly detailed images and information to go along with it, the more the better, always keep yourself in front of your rivals.