Video Tutorial: Easy Product Photography Hacks

Sean Alami: I was born in Tehran and raised in Vancouver Canada and I had been living in Bonn Germany for the past 10 years. I have been shooting photos and videos and editing for almost 15 years now. My go-to Camera right now is my Sony a7s iii for video. And I have been an Adobe Premier user for as long as I can remember.

Up until recently when I joined my family business, I have been a photographer for almost a decade and captured mostly people, hotels, and architecture.

sean alami youtube video tutorials photography

My dad has been one of the pioneers in exporting handmade pottery from the Middle East to Europe for almost 30 years. And I decided to help him get on the Amazon market. At first, I thought it was easy but after six months, I realized it wasn’t. It was very challenging. You see, I’m an artist who’s good at selling his work. From building a website to running Google and Facebook ads, I’ve done it all, but this project was a different terrain.

From scratch, I learned what the importation business entailed, researched to find out all the rules and regulations for importing goods from overseas, clearing customs, shipping to Amazon, creating listings, taking pictures, and then selling it and competing in the Amazon market.

On creating outstanding product shots

For this post, I’ll focus on the photography aspect of what I did and how you can replicate my success in creating stunning photographs of products without spending a fortune on equipment and hiring photographers.

I call it an easy hack to take professional product pictures because anyone can do it. It’s easy because I had to develop a DIY method to take pictures of my products. It was fast, inexpensive, efficient and didn’t require a lot of time. For someone who does everything himself, having an easy hack for one of their tasks could be a valuable tool in their arsenal.

On gear and what’ you’ll be needing

To do this, the good news is that you don’t need a full-frame expensive camera. You can use any cropped sensor camera from Canon, Nikon, Sony etc.

Here is a list of cameras (ranging from $500-$700) that would get the job done perfectly:

Canon EOS 7D

Why is this Canon model my first choice? EOS 7D has a full cross-type 19-point autofocus system, improved AI servo autofocus subject tracking and user-selectable autofocus area selection mode, which can achieve sharp focus under any circumstance.

Nikon D750

The Nikon D750 is one perfect camera you should own for this job. It has a continuous shooting speed that is much faster than the D810 (6.5fps). The D750 also has the same video specifications as the D810, including Nikon’s improvements in every subsequent DSLR version. Motorized aperture control, new “flat” image control mode, and zebra crossing overexposure warning (although the focus peak has not been reached) D750 also provides automatic ISO control during manual exposure video shooting, maintaining exposure compensation.

Sony a6300

This is one of the best cameras by Sony. The a6300 has achieved great success and dominates its field, and even if it enters the latter part of its career, its combination of features and price is still impressive.

In addition, you’ll need a compatible flash to go with your camera. Yongnuo makes affordable flashes with a price of around $60.

The technicalities of the setup

Next, you’ll need a white desk pushed against a white wall to act as a white background to make the surrounding light. Place your object on the table facing upwards, and place the camera over the top of your object, and the flash must be facing the wall as demonstrated in the video below.

With this simple technique, you will end up with some mind-blowing results just out of your camera. I promise you that.

The camera setting I used was,

ISO 200
Shutter 1/200
F 4
And the flash was ⅛ of a stop

If you know your way around Lightroom, all you’ll need to do is pretty much fix the white balance and a bit of contrast adjustment to make it pop more.

Without further ado, watch this video as I demonstrate everything in detail: