Top Techniques for Instagram Product Media.
Published on 20th of March 2022Taking good Instagram pictures or videos goes beyond just placing your product in front of a camera.
If you have a good smartphone, pictures and videos can be taken seamlessly without the need for a digital camera. The smartphone camera is so good now that it's possible that some people won’t even notice the difference.
When Instagram first began, pictures and videos looked so blurry because the cameras available at that time were still poor in features and qualities.
But as of now, one can say that a lot has advanced since then; as evident in different feeds that contain a blend of smartphone-taken and expertly-processed photos.
Business-wise, the majority of engaging content found on Instagram consists of photos or videos of different products and services that look enticing to customers.
To create such visuals, it's important for one to understand some basics and tricks of photography.
Contents
The Angles Matter!
Giving your audience a different perspective of your products can trigger positive emotions that can attract them to your product more. With the right angle, you can make your products look more appealing to the customers.
So, what are the factors that affect the angle of a picture? Well, some of them include:
-
Choice of lens: It's well-known that the type and quality of the camera lens you use determine the outcome of your photos. Also, knowing when to use the correct lens is a step toward becoming a good photographer.
E.g., the wide-angle lens is best suited for landscape or architectural shots because of its wide focal field. And for this reason, wide angles are ideal for landscape photos, as you can capture more of the surroundings and create a much more vibrant picture.
But if you would like to capture an even wider field of view, the fish-eye lens is a smart choice.
They are very constructive if you're snapping indoors or using your camera for design work and are sometimes favored for the unusual 'fisheye’ effect it creates.
-
How you choose to photograph your products: This may be better understood as a concept. From the name, the goal of choosing the right concept (way to photograph your product) is to express your products and their message to the audience. And for this to happen, you have to involve different ideas, themes, and editing.
-
Where you choose to put your products with the scene/background: For the idyllic interior capture, your photo elements need to be parallel to each other. This means that the walls or tables in your photo should be parallel to your camera’s gridlines.
Create Some Depths in Your Pictures
Adding some depths to your photos creates some level of interest and guides the audience/viewers to your subject (products).
Depth is the amount of space between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in sharp focus in a photo.
So, how do you add depth to your images? Amongst all the different ways of creating depths, perhaps the easiest way of creating depths for marketable photos is through the use of portrait mode.
Portrait mode makes use of selective focus, a technique where you intentionally set a wide aperture and focus on your product whilst creating a blurry background in the process.
Most, if not all, modern smartphones have portrait mode. It's the best option when trying to create depths for indoor photography.
Aerial perspective is another technique that helps express a sense of depth in photography. It applies the same principle as portrait mode, where you can make certain objects in your pictures appear hazy or blurry.
Applying aerial perspective can be difficult for new photographers as you need to get the right atmospheric conditions to make objects in the distance appear hazy.
As usual, environmental conditions may often be a limit, but as soon as you see a haze, we recommend you try to make good use of the opportunity.
Make Appropriate Use of Lighting
Light is one of the most fundamental aspects of photography. Whether in an image or video, the amount of light the subject or background is exposed to can affect the result.
For example, too little light cannot grab the interest of your viewers while too much light can make the subject (your products) look washed out.
In brand photography, you will need to understand how light affects the area you usually take your shots. If you can understand how lights (both natural and artificial) behave in an area, then preparing a photo/video shoot will be a lot easier.
Making Use of the Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is one of the essential principles of photography that helps in composition. The principle generally revolves around dividing your image horizontally and vertically into thirds so that your image has nine equal parts.
You then place your products where the horizontal and vertical lines intersect each other. Here, there are four such points.
Making use of the rule of thirds makes your photo look more balanced. Some phone cameras may already have these gridlines available as an option, drawn over the phone’s screen during capture.
With this, you can easily determine the best point to place your products.
You can also apply the rule of thirds with other photography techniques like selective focus to produce a more captivating image or video.
Other Extras
Aside from the above techniques and elements, there are also some tips or extras worth considering that can help in your preparation or capturing process.
An example is to perform an analysis on your old Instagram pictures or videos to check which had the most engagement and likes.
With this, you can determine the type of pictures your viewers find the most engaging and use its concepts in your upcoming photos.
Also, you can consider taking multiple images within a short period as you're always bound to capture the perfect expression, combination, or position of your products.
You can achieve this, by utilizing the continuous burst mode on your camera after you have positioned your shot with the preferred light and composition.
Further reading: