Excellent Product Photography

So you’ve decided that you’re going to venture into the world of product photography, great! In the last post I went over five of the basics of product photography, so I’ll go ahead and give you some more information in this post about what it means to have clean camera lenses, and how to avoid getting bad dirty camera lenses.

One issue that people have a lot is dust. Dust generally isn’t a problem with the lens, however. Usually if dust appears in your images it is because there is dust on the sensor of your camera. Dust will look like a grayish blotch or smudge in your images. Generally they are small, but you can tell they are there if you look closely. It’s easier to tell if you shoot a photo of something that is completely white. Anyways I just mention this because generally dust is not the fault of the lens, which is the topic of this post.

What is the fault of the lens many times however, are cracks and scrapes. This is one of the most problematic issues with lenses that product photographers face. Before you buy a lens, always look at both ends of the glass. Hold it up to the light to check for any cracks or scrapes. Most lenses won’t have any problems if it was taken care of properly, but you want to be absolutely positive that your tool of choice for product photography is in top shape. To protect lenses that you already have, buy a lens filter. There are varying qualities of lens filters, but a good one usually costs no more than $30.

Another problem in lenses to look for is fungus. This is mainly only a problem with older lenses. If a lens has been stored without proper protection in a basement or some dark cool place for extended periods of time, it may have fungus growing on it. If this is the case, your images will definitely be affected by this. It goes without saying that this is bad and avoid lenses with fungus at all costs. Please just use common sense with this. Carefully inspect the lens before buying to be sure that it has no fungus.

The last thing to think about is the cosmetic appearance of the lens. If it is banged up and has scratches on the barrel, this will not affect image quality, however it might give you an idea about how much the lens has been used. If it has an abundance of scratches, it could mean the previous owner didn’t take care of it very well. Buy with caution.

In the end sometimes it’s just smarter to stick with new lenses because you will have less problems on average. In the business of product photography, the less problems you have the happier you will be.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 am and is filed under Photography Basics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.