This is the first time I have shot official product photos (cutouts) for a release. Until recently, I was working full-time for HEDD Audio for over 4 years and also accompanied the HEDDphone TWO GT project.
Find out more about the HEDDphone TWO GT on the official product page.
The product photos of the original HEDDphone TWO were taken by a professional product photographer with an impressive customer list. Due to the visual similarity of the GT and time constraints, it didn’t feel necessary to hire him again. I did my best to copy his hero shot, though I attached the cable as well.
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Cutouts
Practice Sessions
As an audio nerd, it’s my obsession to chase technical perfection and product photos as crisp as 3D renderings are the pinnacle of photography in that regard. I have privately shot a few products to get a hang of it but also noticed that especially reflective surfaces are a real pain to shoot. Fortunately, the HEDDphone TWO GT does not have any.
Choosing the Right Focal Length
Usually, I would have chosen a higher focal length to minimize lens distortion, but 1) I had just purchased the M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.2 Pro privately and 2) this seems to be the focal length used by the former product photographer as well. On my Olympus E-M1 Mark III micro-four-thirds sensor the 17mm equals 34mm on a full frame. Even though MFT sensors have a more shallow depth of field, focus stacking is still a must. Fortunately, I could manually blend only two focus shots into one at f/8 for the whole subject to be sharp.
For the detail shots I have used the M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. All photos and edits were done in the office within 3 days.
Sensor Shift and Megapixels
You might be thinking “OMG, product photography on a 20MP MFT sensor, are you nuts?“ No, Olympus (now known as OM System) introduced sensor shift with the E-M5 Mark II in 2015 and further refined it in the following years. On a tripod, the camera can produce a single RAW file with 80 megapixels. That is what I used here and I also used different exposures for some shots. The small handy Olympus is excellent for stills!
Post-Editing
While mentioning multiple exposures, photo editing is a large part of the product photography process. Not only was I handed a pre-production sample with unfinished parts, but bright lights will just catch every tiny dust particle and reveal what our eyes can’t see just to make it pop on the photo – very annoying! For the first time, I tried the AI assistance by Adobe, but the success rate was lower than 20%. Most of the particles, smears and fingerprints were removed manually.
I have also merged two separate photos for the hero shot to have the same perspective with the new real leather ear pads and the velour pads. One set is a layer in Photoshop on top of the other so that I can export both versions with a single click. I spanned a line of dental floss to make the headphones appear to be floating, so you can imagine the angle did not match perfectly. Overall, I think I did an OK job at the post-edit.
Deserved Criticism
The photos are not perfect at all. I had the optimal results in my head and tried to get there as close as I could. There were challenges to the light setup: e.g. office with large windows and changing weather, limited space, loaned lights without diffusor, etc.. I did my best to make the light bounce, but some shadows are still quite harsh and not as smooth as they should be.
Dark Shots
The objective of a cutout is to show the product as it is. There is only subtle room for subconscious manipulation. (Focal length and angle are the exception.) A black background and dim light makes products look more luxurious, so I have added some dark shots as well.
Lifestyle Product Photography
Since I had one week in total, I used the remaining two days (out of a five-day workweek) for lifestyle shots. This is nothing new to me. My “snapshots“ have been used many times by manufacturers and also accompanied several product releases. Thanks to Chord, my face is featured and my photos are credited on Forbes.com multiple times. I might share the lifestyle photos of the HP2GT later.
