Macro product photography - printed circuit boards

Published on Tue Mar 3, 2015 by David Colbran

Something a little different - macro product photography. Shooting small things can be tricky but with the correct techniques and the right equipment, I can make even the mundane look interesting and present your products in the best possible light. So I was excited by the challenge when an electrical manufacturer contacted me, for some new images of their goods.

They assemble both printed circuit boards and electronic controllers for their clients and have a large workshop here in Merseyside. So it made sense to take my equipment to them, rather than work in my home studio. The essential piece of kit for me, is a quality macro lens - I go with a Nikkor 2.8f 60mm - which is superb. It means I can get in nice and close to the object and also create good effects, such as just having one part of the image in focus.

Often for macro shoots I use a light tent, where the objects are inside and the lights are outside, which difuses the light evenly across the product and removes any flash burnouts. Here though I wanted something in addition and brought along a light-box that I use with a series of different coloured tops to create some interesting patterns and images. The light-box was a bit of DIY project about five years ago but still useful and the client was super impressed with the results!

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2016 update - wow checking my site analytics, this page has received thousands of impressions and a really high CTR % (that's the percentage of users who see this on a Google search and then visit the page - CTR = click through ratio). So if you've arrived here and read to the bottom of the article and found it useful, please share / like the page using the social media buttons below, I'd really appreciate it ! Sharing is caring, as they say.

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Author: David Colbran