How to master Amazon product photography to get more sales
For any type of ecommerce photography or commercial photography, whether it’s for your own ecommerce, Etsy, Shopify, Ebay or Amazon product photography. You’ll need to think about the type of product photography you want to achieve and how will resinate with your audience, so they will be more inclined to buy it.
Your photographs can make the difference between a sale and a scroll.
Robyn
What is product photography?
Product photography is a branch of commercial photography that showcases the product clearly and accurately to the customers in the most photographically pleasing way.
The importance of product photography
Did you know:
88% of Pinterest users will buy something that they have pinned.
CrowdRiff
75% of Online Shoppers Rely on Product Photos When Deciding on a Potential Purchase
With 90% of information transmitted to our brain being visual, the importance of product photography is 93% of consumers consider visual appearance to be the key deciding factor in a purchasing decision. It is literally the window into your online store, building trust and transparency.
The quality of a product photo reflects your brand image, creating the infamous first impression.
But a product session including 7-12 images could set you back $200-$500. This is definitely put a big dent in your profits. That’s why we recommend you learn this simple steps so you can master product photos at home myself.
5 Product photography tips
Types of Product Photography
There are two main types of amazon product photography:
White background photography
As I’m sure you can imagine the purpose of the white background photography to provide a clear background and avoid distractions from the product. It’s very effective and easy when done correctly.
While this can be tricker to prefect it’s more effective in its selling. Lifestyle product photography is simple about seeing the product in context of our everyday life. How someone would use or enjoy it? It’s all about telling the story and getting the viewer to see themselves using it.
What product photography equipment you’ll need?
Best camera for product photography
Clearly you’re going to need a camera, but don’t dwell on which camera. If you can invest in a decent camera thats great, but remember to think about where you’re using your images. If you’re doing ebay, etsy or amazon product photography then you’ll want to pick a camera with at least 12 megapixel, so even a latest smartphone is fine. If you’re looking to print for large advertisements then you’re going to need more resolution, anything 40mp -100mp is great.
Canon T7I
The Canon Rebel is a great canon camera for beginners, with 24mp, the interchangeable lens and manual mode.
Sony ALPHA 7r
The Sony Alpha is a great mirrorless camera for pro, Packing a 24.3MP 35mm Full Frame sensor into a body half the weight of leading DSLRs, this is an exciting new landmark in the market.
Best lens for product photography
It doesn’t matter how good your camera is if you have a kit lens. Don’t rely on your smartphones camera lens, think about investing in some decent interchangeable lenses. Macro lens work best for smaller products like makeup product photography, food product photography, or jewellery, like the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro (my personal favourite) but if you can’t afford that and prefer the lifestyle product photography then the 24-70mm lens is great or The Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM if you’re on a budget.
Best Tripod for product photography
The best tripod will enable you to do the full range of product photos types included flatlay. The easiest way to acheive this is to use a ball head or c-clamp tripod.
Product photography styling
You’ll to need to consider the specification of your platform, as each seems to have a unique list of requirements; Etsy photo requirements, Shopify photo requirements, amazon product photography requirements. Once you’ve worked out what you can do, you’ll need to pick a product background and props to style your photo. Less is more!
Product background
The most popular backgrounds are white or black, however amazon product photography requires a pure white background. Remember that variants are essential for other platforms where any one colour background will provide consistency and avoid distractions by using negative space. A simple card sheet that you can bend into a sweep. Just make sure you consider colour theory and your lighting when choosing your colour. Still not sure which product background to choose?
Check out: What background should I use for product photography?
However if you’re looking for some more product background ideas you might want to consider:
- Tiles
- Wood
- Solid colour
- Patterns
- Bokeh
- Contextual backgrounds.
Amazon product photography specification
It’s so important to check your amazon product photography off from their specification:
- The image must be in focus, professionally lit and photographed or scanned, with realistic colour, and smooth edges.
- All other products should fill 85% or more of the image frame.
- The full product must be in frame.
- Backgrounds must be pure white (RGB 255,255,255).
Product images submitted to Amazon must meet the following technical specifications.
- TIFF (.tif/.tiff), JPEG (.jpeg/.jpg), GIF (.gif) and PNG (.png) format
- Image pixel dimensions of at least 1000 or larger in either height or width preferred
- sRGB or CMYK color mode
- File names must consist of the product identifier (Amazon ASIN, 13-digit ISBN, EAN, JAN, or UPC) followed by a period and the appropriate file extension (Example: B000123456.jpg or 0237425673485.tif)
Product photography faqs
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What settings should I use for product photography?
It obviously depends on the product, but if you’re using a kit lens then I’d recommend the following starting point.
An aperture of f8 means the whole product will in focus. ISO 100 and Shutter speed of around 1/125-1/250.
Use the correct white balance for your lighting. When shooting, you should set it to the same Kelvin temperature as your lights. -
How can I do product photography at home?
Step 1- Choose your product photo type
Step 2- Plan & Create a good product photography setup (Lighting and composition)
Step 3 – Set up your camera with the best settings
Step 4 – Take picture and evaluate
Step 5 – Edit and optimise your image. -
Have any product photography lighting tips?
There are two options for product photography lighting: studio lighting and natural lighting. If in doubt go with natural lighting.
Use proper lighting – A white background without light doesn’t appear white in the photo, it appears grey
Use the correct white balance – day bulbs can help achieve this easily.
Use two light sources (a reflector works great for natural light) to help eliminate any casting shadows -
What are the different types of product photography?
There’s two main different types of product photography, plain background and Lifestyle product photography. However they’re are 6 types of product shots you’ll want to consider:
Individual product shots:Â A shot of your product (with a white background).
Lifestyle product shots:Â Shots of your product being used.
Scale product shots:Â Helps users get a better ideas of the size of the product.
Detailed product shots:Â A close up view to highlight specific product features.
Group shots:Â Groups of products showcased together. – Show off all your variants
Packaging product shots: An image of the product’s packaging. -
How can I learn product photography?
Check out our blog posts on product photography.
Grab your copy of Perfect Product Photos
Book a photography coaching session with myself.
