Outdoor Product Shoot - A Guide To Outdoor Product Photography
An outdoor product shoot has a lot of moving parts. We’re here to help explain our process so you can learn to do it too.
We’ve learned a lot of things about shooting for many different types of clients. Whether we’re doing an indoor product shoot or an outdoor product shoot there are a lot of complexities that will impact the end result. We’d love to share a few things we have learned over the years of shooting outside that will ultimately result in you getting the absolute best shots. That’s what you’re paying for after all. Let’s talk lighting! When doing an indoor product shoot lighting is a much simpler thing to control. You’ve got natural light, studio lights, reflectors, and the ability to really wrangle the light where you want it. You also aren’t limited to the time of day or the cloudy conditions. To get the absolute best lighting for your outdoor product shoot we recommend utilizing golden hour, either in the morning or the evening, but the morning light is normally better. Don’t worry though, if you’re working with us, we’ll do the hard work of getting up extra early so you don’t have to. When shooting products outdoors with golden light in the morning we are able to achieve a higher dynamic range with detailed highlights and shadows. When shooting products like apparel this is really nice to capture the texture and true fit of the product without losing any of the details. Much of our outdoor product photography is done under these conditions.Alright, so now that we’ve talked lighting let’s talk about background and environment. This is another dramatic difference between outdoor product photography and an indoor product shoot. When it comes to working with us at Pagosa Creative we give you a lot of options for the type of environment you want your photos to be in. We are surrounded by beautiful mountains, ponderosa pine forests, pristine rivers and waterways, and of course the incredible Great Sand Dunes National Park. The background can really help to set the tone and the mood of your outdoor product shoot. If you’re going for that epic Hero shot something with mountains is always a hit. Of course, we can provide you with studio photography as well and you have a multitude of color options for backdrops. This can be preferred when going for Amazon product shots or thumbnail images of your product.
Taking things to a whole other level, the Pagosa Creative Company also offers adventure product photography.
For our clients who want this we actually take your products with us on an expedition. This gives us the opportunity to capture your apparel or products in their true natural environment. We believe that this adds authenticity to the products that we offer you. For example, we recently did a shoot with a wool apparel company out of Salt Lake City and we took their wool baselayers on this adventure. This allowed us to get photos both around camp and in our tent.
Ok, so what is our secret? How do you photograph a product outside?
Everyone is going to have their own style and we like to offer two distinct offerings to our clients. The first style that we offer is shot with a tighter focal length. Shooting this way you get a truly cinematic look to it with the background compressed and the foreground really popping. This is perfect when you want to capture certain details like thumb loops, water resistant zippers, or how great the DWR coating is. When we shoot images with this focal length we still follow certain rules, such as the rule of thirds. You want to capture leading lines and angles if they’re available. If we take an image of someone looking uptowards a mountain we like to keep the subject in the right third of the image and with the left two thirds we’ll capture what the subject is looking towards.
The other style of photo that we like to do is more of a dramatic landscape with the subject in the photo but not the focus of the photo itself. When we do this we still follow the rule of thirds. If we’re taking a landscape photos of mountains you always want ot have more mountain than sky in the photo. However, it’s important to keep some sky in the photo so that there is perspective. If possible when setting up your shot you want to have as much sky as foreground in the photo. This will take some practice with composition but it will really improve your adventure photography. You can take a look at some examples on the commercial photography page of our website. These photos are great for helping to tell the story of your brand. Lifestyle images are really important to help reinforce your branding and your messaging. Check out this product listing for a shoot we did for a waterproof phone case.
In this example, this landscape would look a lot larger if we had someone standing in the foreground. it really helps to add scale to things.
What type of cameras are best for an outdoor product shoot? If you’re looking to do an outdoor product shoot on your own you really don’t need a lot of special equipment. Sure, high-end DSLR’s and mirrorless cameras are going to provide a great image but you can also get by with your smartphone. Smartphones have really great technology packed into them that will allow you to get the job done without spending a ton of money. The important thing to remember is that your composition is more important than anything. After composition, exposure is the next piece of the puzzle that you’re going to have to worry about. Getting the exposure right means that your highlights, like sky and clouds, won’t get blown out, and there will still be lots of detail in your shadows instead of them just being black. If you have an iPhone, adjusting exposure is as easy ad taping the screen and adjusting the slider. The same apples if you’re doing an outdoor product video. It’s all about composition, exposure, and focus.
A quick note on focus and light.
When you’re on the “set” of your outdoor product shoot it can be a little harder to get focus because the lighting can be a lot harsher, making it difficult to see. We recommend using your camera’s viewfinder instead of the LCD. Utilizing the viewfinder will help to block out light and give you a better look at your image. Depending on the camera model you have you might have a feature called “Focus Peaking”. Focus peaking will outline areas of focus in different colors that you can choose. We like to use red as it is the highest contrast and easiest to see when you’re outdoors. One more note on focus. If you’re shooting a stationary subject it’s a good idea to just put your camera into manual focus so that you can be certain that the areas you want in focus actually are. Autofocus has come a long way and is great for most things but when you need to be certain of what’s in focus, go with manual.
We use a little hack when shooting any kind of video outdoors and that is utilizing a sunshade. You can get these for quite cheap. This little product helps to keep the sun off of your screen so you can see. It’s always an issue when shooting in bright sunshine during your outdoor product shoot and cutting down the sun glare will help.
Of course, we would love to have your business if you’re looking for a photography and videography service that can provide you with professional results. It’s important for us to first meet with you to get an idea of what your creative vision is. We have our own methods but it’s always a good thing to get on the same page so we can work within your creative bounds. If you hire us for your outdoor product shoot we can guarantee you’re going to love the photos and videos that you get.