How to use a smartphone controlled turntable to shoot professional 360 product photos

If you take product photos for e-commerce, you need consistent lighting and setup for shooting the items from all angles. If you’re on a budget, worry not – you can achieve great results on the cheap. In this helpful video, Dustin Dolby of workphlo will show you how to create professional-looking 360° product photos. You’ll need just one light, a kit lens, and a smartphone-controlled turntable.

Dustin places a piece of white acrylic onto the turntable and adds a speedlight with a stripbox at the back to light the product. There are also two diffusion panels from 5-in-1 reflectors for additional diffusion, but that’s completely optional. He notes that it’s essential that you set the product relative to the camera so you can rotate it without “wobbling.” In other words, make sure to center it so you get a perfect rotation.

Another thing to pay attention to is the dust and any other imperfections. Since you’ll be taking many frames (it can be even a few hundred), you want to get it as clean as possible in camera. Dustin likes to use compressed air to get all dust specs off the product and the acrylic. If you’re dealing with glossy products, also make sure to use rubber gloves.

For his setup, Dustin uses a MIOPS Capsule360 Motion Box, released this time two years ago. It’s a $240 piece of gear, which doesn’t sound like a lot if this kind of product photography is something you do regularly. You can control it with your smartphone and determine the number of rotations. Still, if you want to save some cash, you can improvise and use a Lazy Susan instead.

Make sure to check out the video so you can see the full setup, as well as Dustin’s editing workflow.

[Building a 360 Degree Product Photo with a DSLR & Turntable | Photography & Photoshop Tutorial | workphlo]