Top Tips and Accessories for Watch Photography
Photographing watches is an art. It is also an extremely difficult art to master.
Anyone can take photographs of watches, but not everyone can take high-quality, beautiful photography that stands out from the crowd. If you have seen good photographs of watches, you have probably noticed that there is a huge difference between these and the basic photographs taken by beginners.
The good news is that there are simple and effective tips for improving your watch photographs, and this is exactly what we’ll go through in this article. You don’t have to be an expert in photography in order to make substantial improvements to your photographs. Nor do you need to have the most expensive camera. These tips alone will help you improve the quality of your images a lot.
Below, we go through the most important accessories you need in order to improve your watch photography.
Best accessories and tips for improved watch photography
Tripod
A tripod is crucial for good high-quality watch photos. Movements of the camera affect the sharpness of the photo and make it difficult to achieve perfect quality. With that said, getting a tripod is a great start for improving your photographs. This way, you ensure the camera is kept perfectly still and give it the right preconditions for better photos.
Have in mind that not all tripods are created equal, so make sure you get a really stable one that doesn’t shake as soon as you touch the camera.
Good light
What is even more important than a tripod is good lightning.
Lighting is extremely important for any type of photography. Good lighting is a huge factor in improving the quality and crispness of the photos.
Ideally, you want to ensure that you have lots of white light, but not direct yellow light, for example from a regular lamp or the sun. The best photos are achieved with strong white light, and this is best achieved with studio lights. The best part is that you don’t actually need a studio to achieve this. Instead, there are plenty of small portable studio lights that you can buy that don’t have to cost a lot either. Direct light creates a lot of unwanted and unpleasant reflections that you don’t want to have on the watch when photographing it, but good studio light creates a nice and even light that makes the watch look better.
What is even better if you don’t want to go all in but still want better light is that there are small light boxes with a built-in light that provides white surroundings and good light. To take a photo, you simply place the watch inside the box and snap a shot.
Cleaning kit & microfiber cloth
Another thing that many people neglect is cleaning their watch before photographing it. Things like dust, first, and grime on the watch will have a negative impact on how the watch looks in the photos. This is why you want to make sure you clean it properly before photographing it. Just like models get makeup before they are photographed, you want to present your watch from its best side.
Yes, you can remove pieces of dust and particles with the use of an editing program, but it’s much easier to just clean your watch before photographing it as it saves time and is easier.
This is why it is good to have a cleaning kit and microfiber cloth close at hand so you can give it a wipe, in particular its crystal, before photographing it.
A good camera
Last but not least we can of course not neglect the importance of a good camera for watch photography or any type of photography for that matter. Yes, a modern iPhone will create really high-quality images, but a phone cannot measure with a high-quality camera that is made for the sole purpose of taking photos. If you want to take your photos to the next level, then it is definitely a good idea to invest in a good camera.
With this, you’ll also have great opportunities in improving your camera skills, for example by changing the ISO, aperture, etc, and finding the best camera settings that, together with the points discussed above, create the perfect watch photographs.
