Here are few tips for industrial photography techniques. For examples click here

Lighting - I used seven strobe lights plus light modifiers (reflectors) to obtain uniform lighting. For limited space and relatively large object (22' in length) you need to take more than one shot. Stitching process takes place on Photoshop. Strobe lights are so powerful that you can't shoot monitor and machine in one shot. You need to take a shot of the monitor separately and than add it as a layer to the photograph of the object. Make sure you modify the perspective of the monitor to fit it to the image. Product or industrial photography can also be the art.

Industrial Product Photography. Challenges and Solutions

There are numerous challenges that a photographer may face while shooting industrial objects. Below are a few examples of these challenges and their solutions:

1. Shooting large pieces of industrial machinery can be tricky, especially if they are located in a fully operational environment. Taking still shots of the piece can be extremely difficult when the equipment is running, not to mention the vibrations on the floor on which you put your tripod.

Solution: Shoot at night and rely solely ambient light. Unfortunately, this would require extensive editing to arrive at the finished image.

2. Sometimes, a perfect image requires the photographer to take the shot from great heights and this could include being suspended from a forklift & balancing atop a shaky wooden platform. Click here to see top shot of a workstation. Solution: Turn off the forklift engine, let the skid stop shaking, and enable the camera’s “mirror lockup”. I would also recommend using a tripod and a wireless remote shutter in order to ensure that there is absolutely no movement.

3. Every once in awhile, it is necessary to take photos of a machine located in small storage. If the piece is too large to be removed from the storage, it can be rather challenging to obtain the right lighting direction for shooting within such a confined space. In such situation, ambient light cannot be used. Solution: Use dispersed strobe lights directed at the ceiling and wrap the object with white backdrop to avoid colour reflections from the surrounding walls.

4. How about shooting a long assembly line when there is not enough room to catch entire piece in one shot? Solution: Take a few or a series of images and stitch them together afterwards. HINT: make sure you shoot in HDR and RAW format.

 5. Rubber pieces like gaskets are distorted and often do not lay flat. Solution: Cover it with glass sheet to eliminate vertical distortion and use polarized light. Horizontal distortion can then be removed with final editing. 

To see some examples of industrial photography challenges please click to my Portfolio - Industrial Photography

How to use the day light in industrial product photography

Some objects need to be shot in day light.

My client had a few machines that he wished to be shot on the same day. Due to the sheer weight of these devices and on such short notice, it was impossible for the shooting to be done in the studio.

I had no choice but to rely on daylight to complete this assignment. I decided to shoot in the parking lot; but due to the weight of these heavy machines, I wasn’t able to be too selective in choosing the right spot.

Also, I was faced with an extremely complex lighting situation. It was late in the afternoon and the ambient lighting was totally dominated by the sun’s orange colour. This needed to be corrected, so I had to use grey cards to make the necessary colour adjustments.

If you need some advice how to approach that type of project, please let me know

Different colour reflections from surrounding buildings and objects can make shooting in such an environment even trickier. As such, I had to set up reflectors and large light diffusers to block off all colour reflections and fully rely on indirect, dispersed light.

Here is some camera set up information, just to give you a general idea:

Fully Manual Mode

RAW Format

Colour Space                                   Adobe RGB

Picture Style                                    Neutral

Mirror lockup                                    Enable

Self Timer                                        8sec

ISO Speed                                        320

Tv mode Shutter Speed                   1/20

Aperture value                                  13