Natural light is some of the best light to work with if you're limited on equipment. This is great practice for anyone who does their own product photography and wants to up the quality of their shots. The set up is always fun for me, too. I get to pick and choose what kind of scene I want to make.
Here's how the set up looked. I used the window light as my main light, but set up a silver reflector to bounce light back into the scene. You can buy stands that are made to hold reflectors, but you can see I just clipped mine to the back of a chair at the height I needed it.
Here's a quick gif to show the difference between having a reflector and not. It's subtle, but very important for creating rich scenes. While I used a silver reflector for my final images, the gold reflector was easier to capture the transition on my phone.
And a quick side by side of final images showing both: Top is without a reflector and bottom is with a reflector. You can see a lot more texture on the underside of the props, and the jewelry is more defined at the edges.
A couple more notes about shooting still life:
- Get on the level of your subjects!
This will prevent unwanted perspective distortion.
-Clean your props!
Even though I didn't use the glass for the final images, its important to make sure its clear of water stains or other unwanted elements.
-And a little behind the scenes help:
I made these cards so I can keep track of what kind of reflector is being used in a set of shots so when I go back through processing I know exactly what I'm looking at.
All of these photos were taken at ISO 100 - which is a testament to how strong natural light is since indoor shoots need to be cranked up to ISO 400 if you aren't working with speedlights. With just a table and a window, you can create amazing set ups for your product photography.
For those of you who think they need an expensive camera, here are some snaps straight out of my cell phone camera that haven't even been edited yet:
