The Importance of Pictures

Filed Under: Photography, Site-Build

One of the most important factors for your site if you are selling a product is your pictures. In fact, with my first online retail store, my images provided a competitive advantage. However, while digital cameras are ubiquitous now and you are likely have one, getting professional looking product images out of it is not always easy. There is a reason why people hire professionals for this sort of thing and that they are well paid.

For 90% of situations, you are going to want to show your product on a white background. Getting that white background is not as easy as it seems nor is lighting your product correctly. It gets infinitely harder when you don’t have the right equipment. However, hiring someone, unless you know them, may not be in your best interest as the cost can be prohibitive and you’ll have to hire them again if you add products. Therefore, I recommned investing in some decent photo gear (if you don’t already have it), and some lighting equipment (it will be a tax write off after all and even if the business goes nowhere, you can always recoup some of your outlay by selling some of your equipment).

Here’s what I suggest you invest in for your home product light kit. There are two options, but I would go with number one unless you already have some photo experience. Forget number 2 if you have larger products.

  1. Alien Bees B400 Flash head ($225)
  2. Alien Bees Foldable Large Softbox ($150)
  3. 3 c-stands ($300.00) - order these from Calumet (you may only need one)
  4. Boom Arm ($100)
  5. 1 Set of Pocket Wizards ($360)
  6. 2 Flash units (no need for too much expense here buy you do need them to have adjustable power, a slave feature and a pc jack - $2-300)
  7. 2 small lightstands ($120.00 - this varies depending on what you get but I recommend these).
  8. White Seamless Paper ($30-60 depending on width).
  9. Clamps and other accessories ($100.00)

That is about $1500.

You can substitute a 3rd flash in place of the #1, and you can use a smaller softbox in place of #2. That will save you a little bit. If you have a place to mount the seamless, you can cut down on 2, or even all of, the c-stands and the cost easily starts to get closer to $700-$800. Bear in mind though that while these “compromises” will work, you will need to be more creative and knowledgeble about what you are doing. Also, you start to run into limitations with how big of a product you can photograph. While I currently use the three flash set-up myself, I would prefer to have the larger light source that could be provided by a monolight, it just gives more flexibility when needed and the larger light source will make things easier even when the monolights power is not required.

Images are very powerful sales tools. The better and more professional yours are, the better your site will be perceived.

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