Product Photography – Cost Benefit Analysis for Small Business Owners

Reflective, glass and metal: $40 product image

Product photography is an area I’ve been working with for a while and have learned a lot about what and why to shoot an item, in a particular way, not only for aesthetic reasons, but also tested placement principles to increase conversions.

For good product images, you can expect to pay $15-20 per finished image. At this price, your pictures should be suitable for web and most print ad applications. However, this price is for items which are easy to photograph. Outdoor shoots are more expensive as are items which are difficult to photograph: glass, metals, transparent and reflective materials.

The DIY product photography for web copy is going to run about $3000 in initial cost (camera, lens, lighting, for a minimum setup and that’s assuming you already have the graphic computer and software. Then you have to take all the pictures, process and photoshop the product pictures and then your product images are ready for the web or print.

It’s often less expensive to hire a product photographer to take all your product images than to do everything yourself. Many product photographers will give you a daily rate, which runs around $1000 and will return you anywhere from 50 to 80 quality images, ready to use. Of course, finding and getting the products to the photographer can be task in and of itself. Thankfully, a lot of product photographers work via UPS or FedEx and return the items to you when the shoots are complete. Expect a turn around anywhere from 8 to 14 days, depending on the products, number of items,distance, etc. Be sure to use a bonded and insured photographer if shipping your items for photographing.

Where to find a product photographer? Well, they’re not easy to find, as it turns out. I’ve used a few photographers, mainly portrait, wedding and event photographers and I guess static objects just weren’t their medium. Product photography is meticulous and calculated where most photography captures the moment, product photographers create the moment. It takes a different kind of photographer to create a moment rather than capture one. With FedEx, you can use the same people Tiffany’s uses to shoot their million dollar jewelry, of course, they’re just a little higher than the $20 per image companies.

…if the product photographer has to iron clothes, they charge extra

A good example of a less expensive product photograph $10 image

There are product photographers who aren’t as expensive, but their work isn’t as striking as the more expensive photographer, but they turn out a very nice product at a very reasonable price, usually $10 – 14 per image (40 image minimum is standard). These images are not really suitable for gloss print publications, but they’re great for web, fliers, newsprint and television.

Keep in mind the garbage-in-garbage-out for product photography. If you send a pair of scuffed up shoes, your images won’t be as good. Photoshop and hiding flaws can only do so well in high resolution photographs.

For help finding a reputable drop-ship product photographer, check out.

Product Shooters
1019 3rd Ave South
Nashville, TN
615-259-9822