How to light TABLE TOPS for product photography with LensProToGo

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Last time we explored the food photography technique using just the natural light. Today we will cover how to light up the table top for a any product photography, whether it is food or accessories, jewelry, etc. In the studio with “Cinematography Database” and “LensProToGo” we are about to explore and three-light setup, where two lights are shooting into overhead diffuser to give that shadowless soft light at the 90 degree angle. The third light is pointing from the top at the 45 degree angle to create a perfect sharp drop shadow. This, classic table top setup is very easy to implement.  Let’s see how it is done.

The Setup

  In this shot we are using a tripod Manfrotto 536 with a Kessler Pocket Jib on top. The camera is craned from the top, looking straight down.   The first light that shoots up into diffusion is Fiilex Matrix.  The second light is Fiilex Q1000 doing exactly the same thing from the other angle.   The last is Fiilex Q1000 shooting at the angle from the top, giving the picture a nice shadow, replicating the Sun. For more obvious representation of what is going on we will turn off each set of lights to see the difference. First, let’s turn off the fill lights shooting straight into a diffuser. You can see how the shadows from the spot light are a lot darker now, as sharp. The whole image is a bit more contrasty than it was before. Now let’s see how the soft light look without the spot light. This setup is giving us a really clean, pretty much shadowless image. For some it might already a perfect shot, needless of any addition. For those who want to take it a step further we are going to do some variations, playing with the color and the contrast.  

Variations

Now we are going to have an orange key + blue fill light setup, thus imitating “the sun and the sky” pair setup. To have this setup, we dial our two overhead shooting lights into 6000k light temperature for blue color. And we have a key light, which is the sun at 3200k temperature. Watch the full tutorial video of Greg from Lensprotogo.com here: