I will never stop preaching about how important great product pictures are for your website AND social media. People are naturally drawn to aesthetic things which can increase your conversion rates! In addition to making sure your product pictures are outstanding, it is also important to bring that same energy to your social media pages. A high-quality coherent feed attracts people to your page which can lead to more followers, more followers leads to more engagement, more engagement leads to more visibility, and more visibility leads to more possible future customers. See where I am going with this? Forget all the details, the bottom line is photos (and videos) are EXTREMELY important!

In this post, I will be going in-depth on what my ultimate photography setup is. I run my small business out of my home, so there is no fancy photo studio/room. I have also never paid a photographer for product pictures. I do it all myself with my own equipment!

If you are interested in any of these products, tap the picture or title and it will take you to a link to purchase them! :)

CAMERAS:

In all honestly, you don’t REALLY need a big fancy camera, but it does help. With good lighting (which I will talk bout later), an iPhone can do wonders! I usually take a majority of my product pictures and social media pictures with my iPhone. I would say about 95% of content is recorded simply on my phone! 

There are some times when I want higher quality photos (usually when I am taking pictures of people wearing my apparel). If I do photoshoots outside the house, I will always bring my Nikon camera. 

NIKON D3400:

I have had this camera for FOREVER. I may upgrade soon, but for the time I have had this camera, it has been great! As I said, it is an older model, but it has worked amazingly for what I have needed it for. This is the camera I use when taking photos of models, or when I need a good closeup on something detailed (like jewelry!).

SONY ZV-1 DIGITAL CAMERA:

Are there any current or aspiring vloggers/Youtubers out there? I actually just recently purchased this camera for Youtube! I was very inspired by how well small businesses were doing on the Youtube platform, so I decided to join the train. I know a lot of people vlog on their cellphones, but I felt like the quality of my videos weren't as great as I would like them to be. I did a lot of research and found that the Sony ZV-1 was the best vlogging camera for its price! Full disclosure, this camera films VERY high-quality 4k videos, but the battery life is atrocious. I would get so frustrated because I would film for less than 30 minutes and my camera would be dead. I purchased a pack of three extra batteries on Amazon and the problem was fixed! Long story short, I use this camera strictly for video content, not photos! I’ve dedicated this as my Youtube camera.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can check out my YouTube videos and channel here so you can see this camera in action! I also looked up lots of review videos on this camera via YouTube. feel free to do that as well!

LIGHTING

IMPACT LED PHOTO BOOTH:

So this is another thing I will never stop talking about because this photo booth literally changed my life. Yes, it is a bit spendy but I promise you it’s worth every penny. No need to wait for natural lighting (especially for those who are gone all day and don’t have a chance to even see the natural light!), or for those people who love to work late at night! This photo booth is 4ft x 6ft, so as you can imagine, BIG! I take a majority of all my product photos in this thing. Since it is so large, you can also take photos of people in it too! There are eight detachable dimming magnetic LED lights that you can move anywhere you want to achieve your desired lighting. It also has different backdrops you can use! I have this set up in my garage and I use it ALL the time.

DUCLUS MINI PHOTO STUDIO LIGHT BOX:

If you don’t need something as extravagant as a 4ft x 6ft photo booth, this is a great option for smaller items! I got mine for a whopping $17. The intention behind purchasing this was to use it for jewelry photography. It is great! There are two led strip lights on the top that offer great lighting within the mini booth. This would be the perfect size for stickers, mugs, jewelry, and other small gadgets! 

GIJUANRING 2-PACK DIMMABLE LED LIGHT WITH TRIPOD:

Another recent purchase I made was for these standing LED lights. My office only has one small window with natural light and a single ceiling light. Most of the time, it’s pretty dark (especially living in Oregon where it’s always overcast or raining!). I have noticed that a lot of my videos have shadows in them, or they come out darker than I want. I also wanted to be able to take behind-the-scenes photos of me working/packing orders and without additional lighting, they came out really dark and yellowy. I decided to invest in these two lights to upgrade my day-to-day photos and they are amazing! 

Well, everything I have listed above is what I use to create content! As I said, there is no harm in taking photos with your iPhone. It’s easy, convenient, and cheap. If you are really wanting to invest in your small business, I do recommend upgrading to a higher quality camera to get those excellent shots! If you are not financially in the place to order a nice camera, I suggest investing in some great lighting tools! Personally, I have found that the photo booths and standing lights have worked way better for me than ring lights. Feel free to do your own research and determine what would work best for you, but these are some of my favorite photography finds for my small business!

I also have more great photography finds including tripods and other accessories in my Amazon storefront!