Lighting for Product Photography: The Digital Photographer's Step-By-Step Guide to Sculpting with Light

Absolutely superb book. As a journeyman photographer of some five years I had never found a good book on product photography until I found Lighting for Product Photography. The book is clearly structured, starting with simple setups, showing you how to light and shoot these, progressing to more complicated arrangements. The writing is lucid, engaging and direct. The examples really make the book work. All the examples come with annotated photographs and diagrams, which explain clearly and simply how a particular shot is achieved. A good hearted enthusiastic book that is very competitively priced.I have had this book for a month and it has become an invaluable reference. I now intend to buy Allison Earnest's book on Portrait Photography.

An excellent text on what can be a confusing and tricky subject. Highly recommended. Clearly written and easy to understand.

I am an amateur photographer and I do some work for my ex. boss on a part time basis and needed to know how to light certain products - for website and catalogue. Trawled the net, found this book and it was just what I needed. Clear concise and informative without too much jargon and 'tech speak'.

Arrived well packed and on time. Book contains some useful info and creative ideas. Expensive but good content not readily available elsewhere.

Great, easy to follow

all oke!

Excellent informative book

Good

Esta bien , aunque las imagenes de ejemplo son poco edificantes (no se si son ejemplos antiguos) lo que desluce , lo que cuentan.

Super book but NOT for the beginner as you need above the basics in knowledge and equipment to work all the shoots. Great explanations and illustrations. Great book to use for developing skill and trying the 24 detailed case studies in your own studio. Can be accomplished in relatively small area. Recommend a minimum of 4 lights either speedlites or studio strobes like Alien Bees B800 plus a cyber commander for remote controls of lights is ideal, 1-24x30 softbox, 1 or 2-24x24 softbox, 1-2 strip 8" x 36" or larger softboxes with grids, Snoot, barn doors, Honeycomb grids, 2-light booms,2-diffuser/reflector arms, an assortment of modifiers like mirrors, white, black and gray cards, and background paper and roll of translum diffuser. Translucent white, clear and black Plexiglas bases and small to medium shooting table. 24" x24" or 30x48" and a dozen A clamps, gaffers tape, sticky tack, glue, clips and pins and definitely an incident light meter. Best to shoot tethered and to be able to see in Live View while working setup and making adjustments, adding diffusers, reflectors, flags and gobos etc. Author also list many other things you will need for on going product photography. First 71 pages are on, principals and techniques of lighting products, lighting skills, tools and their uses. Pages 72 thru 149 are dedicated to 24 well done product shots that will challenge your skills and open your imagination for shots of your own design.

Content and writing provided a good understanding of lighting for products, the various modifiers used and tools you may need in the journey.Explanations of various conditions to use techniques was described well. I got a lot of useful information and tips from reading the book.Unfortunately the book's presentation was a major letdown, possibly an issue with the Kindle conversion, the images were small ( <200px wide almost thumbnail size) and heavily compressed with noticeable jpeg artifacts, not something you want to see in a photography related book. For comparison, this book size was 26mb whereas photography books I've purchased in the past easily pass 50mb in size, typically because of higher image qualityIf I had purchased in print would be 5 stars easy.

The book arrived earlier than expected, which is a plus. In perfect condition, the book was packaged quite well. No bends or curled edges. What really sold me on this book, was the response to a customer that was displeased. The author commented and gave her a solution. That spoke volumes to me, the author actually cared about her customers and her product! I just received the book and I am half way through. I like the way the book is arranged with explanations in the first half of the book. Then the "meat and potatoes" of how to light, with different formulas to practice, in the second half. All in all a fantastic book. I definitely recommend it.

A very good book if you are interested in product photography. The lighting setups are easily explained, the camera settings are nicely done. But, if you don't know how to use Manual Mode, learn how to use it, it's really not that hard.Highly recommend this book if you want to learn about proper lighting techniques

I would highly recommend this book to anyone, novice or advanced. This book begins by laying out the basic tools, concepts, and principles that anyone should learn for the setup and lighting of a product shoot, in a clear and concise, well illustrated manor. It then continues with detailed instruction/description of a simple product shoot used to illustrate the simplest of concepts. Each successive chapter illustrates and walks the reader through a different product shoot that layers on more complexity of concept. Each builds carefully on the previous chapter's knowledge and understanding. As layers of paint on a canvass become richer and more complex successively, so do the techniques used to form product images in successive chapters of this book, and that detailed application of techniques becomes the artistry. This book leaves the reader with an invaluable tool box of lighting techniques and principles, and a well rounded knowledge of how to apply them in a manor that transcends simply product photography.

I bought this book to learn something about product photography but what I got was eyestrain looking at all of the badly reproduced images on every page of this book. I'm viewing on a 10" Kindle Fire tablet which otherwise produces excellent images so I would attribute this deficiency to bad conversion to digital format. The pictures look badly and overly compressed, pixelated, blurry and flat. I regret this purchase .

Subject matter is well covered. I would like to have seen more illustrations of the lighting set-ups. The illustrations that were in the book were a bit too small. I regret getting the kindle version, I recommend going for good old ink on paper.

Allison is an excellent photographer and teacher.The is very well written for either a novice or one that's been shooting for a while.If you want to get in the commercial line of photography this is one book you need to get. She diagrams her set ups as well as shows you you all the tools needed to compose the shoot. I give this a five star rating due to the knowledge it gave me to be more proficient at commercial photography. Thank you Allison.Manfred Saul.

I can't even see the layout due to the picture size (too small). The book contains good information but it's outdated. You can find better information on YouTube.

I was advised during my first product photography class that I should buy a good book - of my choice. I was lucky enough to stumble across this one. For someone like me who has absolutely no studio photography experience, it is excellent! It is very comprehensive and covers everything from equipment to technique. For those with studio experience, it also offers "recipes" for lighting various surfaces from opaque to metal to glass. It contains over a dozen case studies with photos of lighting set ups including various modifiers. A great resource that I'm sure I will refer to for years to come.

This book is decent, but not what I had expected. I was hoping for more in-depth photos of the set-ups and the why's and how's of the shots. I thought the overall set-up shots should have been a whole page instead a small photo where your really could see important details without squinting.

Getting the kindle edition was probably not helping this; the pictures in the book are tiny and it's virtually impossible to follow the points made about the examples shown. the pictures showing the layout of the shoot and light placement are practically useless.There are some good points in this book that help me be a better product photographer, but overall, the book lacks a coherence and development of techniques. The shows various real life examples, which on the surface seems great, but I had a hard time following them (again, partly because of the poor sample pictures.) The book starts great - with an introduction to basics - philosophy, theory, light etc. Great to follow and makes sense. Then she talks about equipment - like light meter, or high powered monolights - without really explaining what is truly needed and how to put it together. Given that a light meter is $500, and a 1000w/s monolight costs upward $2000, more discussion and help in having the aspiring product photographer develop a reasonable entry level setup would have been helpful. There seemed to be more than a subtle promotion of particular products form supporting manufacturers.Overall, the book offers some good insights and ideas that I was able to incorporate into my setup. But I was not able to follow any of the examples, owing both to being able to follow the explanations and lacking the equipment deployed, to learn by doing and get a broader understanding of the concepts.I would recommend anyone considering this book to pass on the Kindle and check out a hard-copy to see if the photography is clearer - it may greatly improve the value of the book.

Well explained and illustrated.

Straight to the point and zero fluff.