Orbitvu is unique when it comes to automated photography and their systems are very flexible and allow creative teams to retain their creative control.  It’s often a misconception that with automating a process you have to give-up something, that you’ll have to make a sacrifice.  And in some cases of when you automate processes this is true.  However, in this instance it is not the case.

In this episode of our photography automation insights we look at how flexible Orbitvu automated photography systems can be and how the tools and accessories can be used to provide flexibility so the creative control photographers will not have to be sacrificed, which is key to imaging for example, the ability to control lighting, the ability to be creative depending on type of images you need – because one day you may be shooting images to use on your ecommerce platforms and next month you may want to shoot images for a marketing campaign.  Therefore, being able to be creative and not sacrifice control for the sake of automation is one of the reasons why Orbitvu photography systems provide the best of both worlds.

Diego and Mark use some wine and flowers to do a Valentine’s themed photo shoot using the ALPHASHOT XL PRO v2.  The standard configuration of the ALPHASHOT XL PRO v2, without optional accessories is quite a flexible system just out of the box.  It comes with a strip light on the right and left hand side and both lights can be moved in and out, and be rotated in addition strip lights on the top right and left and be rotated and the entire back and bottom is backlit with LEDs so you have 6 separate light zones that you can control independently. The lighting controls provide creative flexibility to the operator of the system.

The team captures a quick shot of the set, using default template settings.  The software allows you to adjust the camera and lighting to fine tune the image details and again the software allows you to save your settings as a customized template for a particular product for reuse at another time, to be able to repeat the same photo shoot and maintain product image consistency.

An image is captured using no accessories other than the reflective pad as a base to compare to the final images, just to show a little creativity with showing the reflection of a product.   An image is captured, and the background is removed automatically within seconds to produce an image that is useable with just standard light settings.  For some this maybe fine and is a useable image, but you can see the reflection is a little washed out and that it is a little more noticeable when the background color is changed to Valentine Pink.  While it’s possible to manipulate the light further and get closer to an image we’d like to use for a marketing campaign, there are hard reflections on the bottles.  However, for a quick image from an automated system out of the box – it really achieves a lot.

However, the focus of this episode is to see how creative we can really be using Orbitvu systems.  The image is reshot using 2 additional accessories – a set of light diffusers and a front textile cover.

The ALPHASHOT XL PRO v2 model has options for diffuser kits to be added to the system.  Diego demonstrates how easy they are to work with and how quickly they can be installed on each side for the two side lights.  These additional features stick magnetically and can be rotated to different specific angles and locked in.

The reflective pad is already set on the rotating table and the third accessory the team demonstrate is the front textile reflective pad.  With a system like the ALAPHASHOT it is typical to get some reflection from the studio or the camera.  The textile covers, which is reversible – white on one side and black on the other – goes across the front of the machine to block that reflection.  This provides flexibility in terms of handling reflection or bouncing light.  Diego demonstrates how easy the pad is to install over the machine.

Accessories installed; Diego quickly captures the new images with the background removed and you see how the image looks much different to the original we took.  The reflections are much softer, and more diffused using just the default template.  However, even with the accessories you can manipulate the light further and template the settings for reuse, for the accessory that you have installed.  The final image is much nicer in terms of reflection and when background color is changed, the lighting looks nice and more creative.   The final images are quickly exported in a couple of different backgrounds, size and file types.  It’s possible to create as many of these different types of outputs as we would like and can be set as output presets to quickly export images as needed.

The objective of Orbitvu’s accessories is to enhance creative control, and at the same time enable you to be more productive in terms of speed and efficiency as you would expect with automation.

To see more details of the system and accessories used in this episode, click here or request a demo and we’d be happy to show you the system, and its accessories online or in person at our demo studio in Atlanta.

Look out for more educational and technical videos from Orbitvu USA, where we’ll feature other technologies to address some of the imaging workflow issues and challenges product photographers face in 2020’s fast paced eCommerce world.  If you have a particularly challenging product or issue that you would like to see us feature – shoot us an email at studio@orbitvuusa.com!