When speaking about product photography, most people might picture white background images with a product/object sitting in the center of the frame with a shadow or a reflection. But that is not the whole story of commercial product photography.
As an online shopper or regular customer, you might have got used to this type of product image when we are looking at a product online.
However, do you wonder what this kind of photography images is called?
Why most eCommerce websites using this style of photography?
This type of white background product image is called eCommerce Catalog Photography in a professional term. Major online shopping websites like eBay, Amazon, JB Hi-FI using this kind of product photography for their website.
Here are the Pros and Cons:
eCommerce Catalog Photography
Pros:
eCommerce Catalog images are relatively easy to produce and cost less to create. This type of product images can achieve a nice clean product catalog image library on the website. It is best for companies/brands that have a large collection of products. It is good to show details of products when using high-resolution captures.
Cons:
eCommerce Catalog images are not very effective for catching first-time customer’s attention, sometimes this style of product images might look generic or even a fake perfection looking when working with low-cost products.
Another photography style is called Creative Product Photography/branded product photography, which is using photo compositing and props to create special scenes for a particular product.
Creative product photography is traditional studio photography that involves concept building and advanced photography techniques regarding lighting and styling, at the same time, it often takes more time to edit them in post.
Pros:
Creative Product Photography produces eye-catching images and elevates the quality of a brand visually, and create product photography is best for advertising campaigns and seasonal promotions. eCommerce websites typically need 1-3 creative product images for the website banner and landing page to set up the tone and overall feeling of the brand.
Cons:
Creative Product Photography typically costs a lot more time and money to produce than eCommerce Product images. It is not mean to produce in a large volume in a short period of time. If a brand has established a statice look for a while in the market, it will be best to work with an art director/branding company to provide proper guidelines for creative product photography, so that all visual marketing content will serve the brand identity in the most proper way.
The last style of product photography is called CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) photography, which is also a similar type of creative photography, the differences are that CGI photography is utilizing CGI software to create photographic elements including the 3D modeling products and background elements in the scene.
This image is a good example of CGI photography, water splashes are made in CG which saved a lot of time and money than produce it in a traditional studio. It will be very difficult to capture the real water splashes at the perfect timing. Using water splashes is not only great for grabbing first-time customer’s attention but also emphasizes the waterproof feature of the product. With the help of CGI technology, the sky is the limit when producing creative product images.
Pros:
The cost sweet spot between eCommerce photography and traditional studio creative photography regarding the cost and the time of production. Having a CG digital asset of a product or a collection is a great advantage, especially for brands that are selling one or two products but with different exterior designs or covers.
One more plus is that CGI photography is good for products that are still in the manufactory stage, CGI photography is capable of producing photorealistic render images to occupied marketing campaigns as early as it can be, which is a great strategy of winning marketing over other competitors.
Cons:
CGI photography requires multi-skills to produce, the product photographer/creative studio has not only need to master advanced lighting and traditional photography but also need to effectively implement 3D product modeling, texturing, rendering, and photo compositing. That is also why most photography studios/photographers are not able to offer this type of product photography service.
REMEMBER
Professional images are not only serving to showcase your product details under good lighting, but professional product images are also an important indicator of your brand’s quality and identity. They are speaking to the customers about how legitimate your business and products are. Because every product detail and features will be showing through the professional product images. This is what builds the trust with first-time visit customers and this is what makes the sale.
So… here we are, we are Wenbo Zhao Photography Studio, we want to help business owners who have a great product line, not selling cheap products, and we want to help business owners who value professional product photography and wanting to elevate their brand.
Let’s get to know more about your business and products now!
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If you think this blog post is helpful, please share with your friends or families who are wanting to learn more about product photography. If you have a photography project to be done or a product line that is getting ready to launch, please contact studio@wenbozhaophotography.com for a quote.
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