You can take reliable photos of your furniture for your online store if you follow this step-by-step tutorial on how to shoot furniture photography. Selling and buying furniture, whether new, used, damaged, or in pristine condition, is stressful for everyone involved.
Customers want a quick, dependable, and completely stress-free experience. How about you, the buyer?
Clean up your products.
Furniture photography is no different from any other successful product photography in that attention to detail is essential. The furniture industry produces many nooks and crannies. There are probably a few dust bunnies hiding in your piece unless it has just been finished.
Therefore, be sure to dust those bunnies and buff out any marks or flaws. Before beginning your photo shoot, polish your furniture with furniture polish or a multipurpose cleaner to make it look its best. Your client already anticipates receiving their order in excellent condition. You are therefore saving yourself a step before shipping.
Choose a time and location for taking furniture pictures.
Unfortunately, your furniture won’t likely fit in a standard setup for a tabletop photo shoot. Therefore, picking a location to photograph furniture can be challenging. Find a place with lots of light that is at least three times the size of your piece.
For instance, outside on a cloudy day or close to a window. It is best to use natural light, particularly with the distinctive sizes and shapes of furniture. If you’re shooting outside or right next to a window, try to stay out of the direct sunlight.
Sharp shadows are not what you want the light to produce. When you do furniture photography next to a window, you can eliminate harsh shadows by diffusing the light with a sheet or piece of white paper.
Organize your backdrop
The best place for your product to be displayed is in front of a white background, when showcasing a single piece of furniture. It’s simple to locate low-cost background stands and rolls of paper online for a product this size.
You can always create your DIY setup, though. You only need a white sheet or piece of paper that is three times the size of your product and a few clamps from your “Photographer’s Toolbox” to succeed in this.
The most crucial action here is to make a smooth transition between the vertical and horizontal planes to create a photographic sweep. The arrangement you can see above, which includes a background stand, a roll of paper, and a few clamps, was ideal.
Selecting a lens
When photographing furniture, choosing your lens and comprehending the lens or camera you’re using is crucial. Your optical zoom, not your digital zoom, is the essential thing to pay attention to in this situation.
While digital zoom simply crops an image, using your optical zoom properly will allow you to get a closer view of the subject you are photographing.
When taking pictures of furniture, you should have your focal length, expressed in millimeters, at its greatest setting. To put it another way, you should optically zoom. This indicates that there needs to be considerable space between the object you’re photographing and your lens. When selecting your space, keep this step in mind.
The reason for this is that the lines in your product will be distorted when you take photos with a shorter focal length, or a “wide-angle lens,” and your photo will not accurately depict the product your customer will receive.
Here is an illustration of a product that was first photographed with an 18mm lens and then again with a 55mm lens. Observe how the lines appear to curve in the first shot and are warped in the second shot, where the lines are perfectly straight.
Select your angle.
Pick a perspective that lets you see your furniture’s front, side, and top all at once. While shooting from an angle will give the customer a better visual representation of your product’s dimensions, shooting front-on will confuse your customer and make your piece appear flat.
Take numerous pictures.
Several photos will also help your customer get a better understanding of the appearance and feel of your furniture piece. Because your customers cannot touch or feel the furniture, giving them the impression that they are walking around the item will help them to believe in you as the seller and, hopefully, to picture the item as their own.
Using a small aperture, take pictures of furniture.
You must use the smallest aperture you can to get your entire product in focus because the furniture has long dimensions and a long focal length. Set your camera to “A” (Aperture Priority) and adjust the aperture dial so that your f-stop is at least 8 if you don’t feel comfortable taking manual shots (you want a higher number if possible).
When your e-commerce store has a zoom feature, it is especially crucial to shoot with a small aperture to capture all the details of your product. The photograph below was taken with a small aperture (f/10) on the left and a large aperture (f/1.8) on the right.
Doings Suggestions
You can try the photography tips below while shooting your product picture.
- Keep your product’s styling subtle. Don’t style at all. Most of the time, the function of your furniture piece is obvious, so adding products will only draw attention away from the main subject.
- If you’re taking pictures of used furniture, don’t hide any blemishes. When a customer buys used furniture, they anticipate some minor wear and tear. Just be sure to first draw attention to your product’s strongest points before being completely transparent about any components that aren’t in mint condition.
- Utilize a reflector. Due to its size, large shadows will be cast on the sides of the furniture that are farthest from your light source. Any components of your product that might be hiding in the shadows will be prevented by using a reflector.
For those of you who are looking for the best e-commerce photography services for your product, you can check Dropicts. It is time for you to give your best furniture photography for e-commerce results catching more potential buyers’ eyes.
