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I've been taking lots of product photos lately, and my Casio Exilim does the job, but not very well. After the screen was crushed, I can only see the bottom part of the screen, meaning it still works fine, but I can't see how to change light settings or set the automatic timer. This is a big problem, and renders the camera almost useless for product photos.

Another problem is the low-light settings aren't great on the Exilim, at least not for product-photo purposes. So I went ahead and got some advice from a photographer friend and bought a Cannon S3 IS.

Now this camera isn't going to fit in my pocket or come out to parties with me, rather this is more of a tool to help me take more creative product photos.

I've been setting up my ghetto photo studio in different places, but I've been finding the kitchen seems to be the easiest because I can regulate the lighting within that area pretty well. I've taken some pretty cool pictures so far with this basic setup:

Who says you need an expensive studio for photos?? This new camera isn't as point-n-shoot as the previous cameras I've had, so I'm starting to learn more about photography. Since most e-commerce sites nowadays have such a generic feel to them, taking original product photos is something which can set a site apart....hopefully this theory pans out for me in the next few months!

I've been learning how to set the ISO, white balance, shutter speed, night settings etc. to help make photos look great in different light settings. This is an example of dark light setting where I should have changed the settings to make it less grainy, but it still looks nice:

Here's a black light photo I really liked of some Lucite shot glasses that glow under black light. I think this photo looks really cool. This new camera has already proved its worth.

Here is a low-light shot of a color-changing candle. This basic photo already far surpasses the ones provided by the manufacturer:

Here is a best seller item on my biz House Of Rave called Oggz. I've already put some of these new photos on House of Rave to give customers a better idea of these things. The image below hasn't even been Photoshopped except for size cropping. The camera does an amazing job at catching the vibrant colors.

I think that shot looks much better than anything the manufacturer has, and it will be unique only to my site. Hopefully this $350 investment will pay off, I have a feeling it will. I've been trying to do one or two products a day along with their descriptions, and it's actually pretty fun "work"!

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