Just got Rebel T4i... now what lens? software? how to shoot product photography?

[Donfong]

I personally think in this situation, lenses wouldn't matter as you're going to be using a flash for this, or some lights, and a tripod. On the matter of focal length, it'll be a matter of getting closer to the product. Regardless of those two, even if a bad photographer does the shooting, it wouldn't matter too much not because of post processing, but because of the fact that you're only going to have to resize the pictures to 360x360 pixels(72dpi monitor @ 5 inches). But if I were to choose, I'll take the 55-250 because of not having to get too close.

[FastGass]

At black dog,

I think RAW still should be used because I never got a picture out of the camera "Just right.", and the other reason is you can reduce, sharpen afterward in tiff and then save in jpeg without extra artifacts and smaller file sizes for the same amount of artifacts.

If you never postprocess and have a slow computer were selecting time is valuable then it can work OK. But you will still have to (you should) select, mabye crop, fix a mistake now and then and resize to websize. I don't see how just draging a few sliders for a quick and sometimes dramatic improvement is not worth it and with better IQ on top.

Oh, and stay away from KR he is not very reliable to say the least! (I don't know if you read him or not.)

At OP,

My choice for a postprocessing program is DxO, it has the edge in noise reduction/IQ and has a huge lens/camera corrections database which works great. And if you want a kick try Photomatix!

John.

[peety3]

A guy who had some kick ass pictures...I asked him what he used and he said an older canon (don't remember the name but it's from 2006) and Canon EF-S 17-55mm F/2.8 IS USM Lens. That lens is $800+, I don't mind buying it, but people have told me I wouldn't see a difference between my lenses and his lens (for my purpose)... true or not?

(2) My camera came with some software like Adobe Photoshop elements 10, but someone recommended Adobe light room (which isn't too expensive). Should I invest in it? What adjustments should I focus on in photoshop (probably impossible to answer)

(3) How should I be shooting? Someone just told me shoot in RAW mode. Other than this, is there any other settings or adjustments I should use? (Yeah, never used DSLR before). I know there are photo books out there (100s of pages), is a lot more detail than I want or describes multiple functions. I am just using my camera to get rid of some old clothes, usually list for charity, and get whatever I can out of it. Not looking for anything else (maybe some day).

Any thoughts and opinions are appreciated (:

You should shoot at ISO 100, f/8, 1/1250th of a second, RAW, white balance +1/-7, and the camera should be vertical. Don't buy any lenses priced lower than $799, as they might hurt some ass but won't kick some ass. Tripod is absolutely mandatory, please don't ask for tips if you aren't shooting with one.

Seriously, start with basics: shoot JPEG so you can work with your results quicker. When you're ready, transition to RAW. Use free simple software like Google's Picasa, then graduate to Lightroom when you're ready. Picasa and Lightroom are great "workflow" tools, while Photoshop is more for in-depth manipulation of individual photos.

But yes, the magic is all in the lens. Looking back through my all-time favorites, they're eligible for favorite status because of the lens, or because of the light. Occasionally, there's a shot that was made easier because of the camera choice, but not often. Every time, it's because I went to that particular spot at the right time to get the shot.

In general, folks often start in full-auto and work their way to more manual control. I "stopped" at aperture/ISO priority, letting the camera choose the shutter speed, because of my "run-and-gun" style and because I'm good at the technomath of photography. If you're doing product photography, you probably do want a tripod, set the lens to f/8 to start, and it's all about the light.

[Mark Elberson]

it's all about the light.

Above all other things

[andnowimbroke]

.. And the shadows that lack of light created