You can take great product photos with a mobile

Everyone seems to be looking for great photos these days, either for the products that they are selling online or photos for blogs that they are posting.

Taking a great product shot with your cell phone (as we call it in South Africa - or mobile as they call it in the rest of the world) can be done.

3 of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to capture high quality product images at home are: Composition, Lighting and Camera technique.

Lets have a look at the most basic of composition and also the easiest to get grips with.....

The rule of thirds is applied by aligning a subject with the guide lines and their intersection points, placing the horizon on the top or bottom line, or allowing linear features in the image to flow from section to section.

The image area gets divided in 3 horizontally and vertically, leaving you with 9 blocks. With this grid in mind, you can frame your shot and pay close attention to the 4 cross points. The intersection between the lines is where the strongest composition could be. With the rule of thirds composition, you want to have your important subject matter situated off centre and ideally on one of the cross points. There will be times where this rule is broken, however you first need to understand the rule before you can break it.

Theoretically, if you place points of interest on or around the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Studies have shown that when viewing images most people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot – using the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it.