Audio Products For Magazines And Advertising

[Nathan Wright]

I just joined up and I DIG what you are shooting. I hope one day to equal what many of you do, though I'm not going to wait for my skills to catch up (if they can).

I shoot table top and living room audio products for magazines and advertising. Mainly, speakers and amps and earphones/headphones and cables and things. I'm a big audio geek and contributing member at headfi.org. I review what I shoot and buy/borrow other stuff. If you want to upgrade your phones… just ask!

Anyway, because audio is my life, that's pretty much all I shoot. Sometimes I hike and shoot nature, but mostly it is audio stuff. People interest me, but only if they are in nature or holding audio gear.

If you want to critique what I post, please do, but it's already published in some magazine somewhere, so it's too late!

cheers.

 

[Nathan Wright]

Strange how that middle one looks yellow.

 

[Pete Askew]

These are very nice indeed Nathan. How do you light and shoot?

 

[Nathan Wright]

Hard to remember. The last one was one light camera right at about 2AM. The middle one was behind styrene and powerful lights with side reflectors and front reflectors. The first was very simple: three Nikon flashes behind tracing paper about 1 metre from subject and camera slightly high to get reflection.

 

[Pete Askew]

Thanks Nathan. I'm always interested in seeing how people light subjects like this.

 

[Nathan Wright]

The lights are one thing, it's the many reflector cards, flags, and prayer that makes it 'fun'. My studio space is very small so I work within very tight bounds.

 

[Pete Askew]

I know what you mean. I have just bought a bunch more clamps. flexi-arms etc to reduce on the tape and string that inevitably invade my spaces.

 

[Nathan Wright]

I think I am a bit more low tech than you are. Most of my stuff is bespoke made for that shoot. I would like to be able to fit clamp arms and good C stands, but the current space I'm renting is a Tokyo room...

 

[Pete Askew]

I'm lucky with space and can only imagine the restrictions you face in Tokyo. Great results though.

 

[Lesley Jones]

I love the tones on the first one. I'm afraid I know nothing about lighting except when I did a photo shoot with one of our ferrets for a poster. We used the same gear a few weeks later to photograph a newly rescued battery hen and then I gave up. Everything crammed in a tiny dining room, with no furniture, three litter trays, two cat beds, one cat. We made four stands with posts cemented in old paint pots. The lights came from a DIY shop and I stapled garden fleece round some bamboo canes to act as a diffuser...

 

[Hamish Gill]

Hi @Nathan Wright

I do a little of this sort of thing my self ...

Electric Beach Speakers

I do think your Sennheiser photo is particularly good!!!

 

[Nathan Wright]

I love the tones on the first one. I'm afraid I know nothing about lighting except when I did a photo shoot with one of our ferrets for a poster. We used the same gear a few weeks later to photograph a newly rescued battery hen and then I gave up. Everything crammed in a tiny dining room, with no furniture, three litter trays, two cat beds, one cat. We made four stands with posts cemented in old paint pots. The lights came from a DIY shop and I stapled garden fleece round some bamboo canes to act as a diffuser...

It's a specialised world. I find earphones are the hardest to do, amps/speakers are the easiest (but the most work as they are so damn heavy). Lighting is just study and observation. That's it. Sometimes a single image may take hours to set up properly. It's for patient photographers and can look quite boring.

Hi @Nathan Wright

I do a little of this sort of thing my self ...

Electric Beach Speakers

I do think your Sennheiser photo is particularly good!!!

Dear Lord, those must weigh a tonne. Recently I shot ones almost that tall, but wider. Getting them into the studio was … difficult. That part alone took over an hour. I use rather long soft boxes, but could still go for longer. I find lights can never be too big. What size lights do you use?

 

[Dave Young]

Hi @Nathan Wright

I do a little of this sort of thing my self ...

Electric Beach Speakers

I do think your Sennheiser photo is particularly good!!!

Damn, those speakers are sexy!

I used to have a pair of Missions that were like that - used to weigh a tonne, and could blow the windows out! - Geez, I miss those days so much!

 

[Peter McCullough]

Very nice Nathan;

I'd so love to shoot 'product photography'. What your camera set-up for those images please?

I've been into hi-fi myself for a long long time, love it. My audio friend made me a valve DAC etc, sounds the bizzz.


Regards;
Peter

 

[Beth Carter]

great lighting, esp. on the first.

 

[Nathan Wright]

great lighting, esp. on the first.

Thank you Beth, it is nice to know that the photos look okay.

Very nice Nathan;

I'd so love to shoot 'product photography'. What your camera set-up for those images please?

I've been into hi-fi myself for a long long time, love it. My audio friend made me a valve DAC etc, sounds the bizzz.


Regards;
Peter

I used to use a D200, now I use a D800. Neither are that good for fiddly products like earphones and headphones. I use large strobes (Pro-B heads) and soft boxes and loads of home-made reflectors and stands and basically my small space looks like a robot workshop. The best cameras for flash macro photography are cameras that have good live view that can be shared with portable devices. The D800 does not do that well without extra accessories and still, is noisy and hard to use. I will trade my D800 in for a Sony A7R and be done with it.

If I used static lights, any camera will do, but I don't. Static lights are very good, but run too hot for my place, and there are some things I can't do as well with them. I prefer strobes. Maybe someday I will go back to static lights.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

I love this sort of work - you make it look effortless, which is a triumph because it's damn difficult, especially with reflections etc

People interest me, but only if they are in nature or holding audio gear - man, on the one hand that could be really limiting, but on the other hand, wildly creative

 

[Hamish Gill]

My largest soft box is maybe 1.2 m by 80cm at a guess ... I'm not sure what I used of this though... There is some soft fill on the right if some sort which may have been the soft box, or a brolly at a distance. The main light on the left was a beauty dish with some barn doors on the front

 

[Nathan Wright]

I think we use similarly sized soft boxes. I've been thinking to purchase a 90*180 soft box, too, but don't currently have space to use it. Very much hoping to be able to purchase an abandoned building near my new place. That would be perfect.

 

[Hamish Gill]

That's a similar plan to ours as it goes, we have just moved into fractionally smaller offices with a smaller studio, but we are looking for a large unused space at the mo!