Watch Photography Resources:

Here's a collection of watch photography links that cover almost everything a beginner watch photographer should consider. Reading even one or  two of these articles will get you a long way ahead, quick.

Since most readers will be shooting with smartphones, I'd say go here, first: How to Take Product Photos With Your Smartphone: Tips for Shooting on the Go and follow their links, too. You'll gain a superb overview of what you need to think about.

Using a camera? Then add this  https://www.pixelz.com/blog/iso-aperture-shutter-speed-diy-product-photography/  to the Clipping Path overview, above. It's a clear explanation of all the basic camera settings, and how to use them for "product photography."
 
This will help whether you shoot wrist, table, indoors, or outdoors. Clipping Path India: 9 Alternatives to White Background Product Photography  

Basic composition: The Rule of Thirds: https://phlearn.com/magazine/rule-of-thirds-how-to-use-it-in-your-photography/  

More, and breaking basic composition rules: https://www.yourcamerastory.com/tips-for-product-photography-composition/

These are directly related to watch photography:


This watch photography video from Martin Botvidsson contains one of the best ever tricks I've ever seen to stop hazy reflected glare on watch crystals. I won't give away the secret--I'll let Martin do that--but I'm grateful, and the whole video is well worth the 15 minutes watching it. Adapt, improvise, overcome.

More advanced but very useful:

What about Light Boxes?

Simply put: a light box diffuses incoming light, and  also reflects incoming light on its own interior surfaces, which results in more even light on the subject and reduces harsh shadows.
My original home-made light box. made of corrugated white plastic sheet. The tungsten work lights were way brighter and hotter than what I wanted, and the plastic is too thick unless the lights are bright. Not really recommended :-)
 I have a light box, and I use it lots. My first light box is among these Google photos of home made light boxes, but there are much better home made versions than mine at the link.

Now I have a foldable, "store-bought" light box, and some pro-am photo lights, but nothing I do with that stuff can't be done without it. A home-made box and two or three small lamps is certainly all one needs for great results. Regular table lamps will work.
Both shots taken in the home made light box (with a 4 megapixel camera).

Some opinions for beginners:

Although I love shooting watches and watch related stuff, I don't claim any special expertise at photography. But I do shoot lots, and I know some stuff that helps me get lucky. In that spirit, here's some  considerations I think will save you time and frustration.

1) Take your time.

2) I shoot mostly with a phone, but sometimes with a camera. Great shots can be taken with either.

3) Take lots of shots, moving things like shooting distance and angle slightly, altering light, and making other small changes where they occur to you.
If you take just one shot, it'll be either OK or not OK, but if you take lots of shots, with many slight changes, you'll have photos that range from best and better to worst. I think I average 30 or 40 or more photos taken to the one used when shooting watches. You don't see my many, many failures :-)

4) Good lighting is essential.
  • This terrific Xuanprada blog post beautifully explains the difference  between soft, hard, diffused and specular light, and understanding the difference will make a *huge* difference in your results. Also: shooting shiny objects.
  •  Too little light is usually more of a problem than too much light but avoid whited/blown-out spots or areas of steel, chrome, gold, etc. Sometimes all it takes to avoid the blowing out is moving the light, changing the angle or moving it away a little bit.
  • It often helps to have more than one light source. Three is often best, but I mostly use two and bounce light for back light (link goes to 3-point lighting explanation).

5) Make sure the watch is as spotless as possible, dusted and finger-print cleaned. That includes the strap or bracelet.
  • It's way easier to prevent blemishes than to remove them afterwards.
  • For wrist shots, include being aware of stray wrist hairs crossing the crystal, shiny surfaces, and/or straps. They can be very distracting. Try to move/get rid of them somehow before shooting. Hint: a small piece of wire or a tiny screwdriver is all you need to push stray wrist hair under the watch or strap while keeping the subject wrist and watch still.

6) It may help to use a tripod or phone/camera holder. Any even very small movement of the camera can destroy an otherwise great shot.
When it comes to tripods...
  • I  often don't use a tripod, but that noted:
  • A tripod or phone holder doesn't have to be fancy--it just has to work. 
  • Overhead phone mounts are handy. Recommended for phone: inexpensive Neewer table top monopod and any tripod phone mount.
  • I also have what's called an "overhead arm" for use with my more professional camera tripod. Some tripods come with it.
  • Using a tripod leaves your hands free to adjust the watch, the lights and the props, if any.
  • No phone holder or tripod? Then jury rig something with wire coat hangers or other stuff around the house. Again: adapt, improvise, overcome.

7) Think about using your phone or camera's timer setting, or use voice or a Bluetooth shutter.
  • Many phones will take shots with voice commands, and lots will accept very inexpensive Bluetooth shutter triggers. Especially if you're shooting a wrist shot, you only have one free hand to do everything else. Remote triggering of any kind ensures a steady shot, and leaves your hand(s) free to make small adjustments while you're shooting.

8) Pay attention to focus. Pay attention to focus. Pay attention to focus.
  • It's most often better to move the camera or phone closer or further way rather than using zoom. Experiment with different zoom and camera distances till you know how your equipment behaves best.
  • On a phone (cameras too?), using portrait mode can sometimes help get blurry backgrounds even in watch shots, if you want that.
  • Experiment with macro settings, but understand that macro settings often have very narrow areas of focus, so one part of the watch might be in perfect focus but another, mere millimetres away, might not. That can be artistic and can help focus interest, but use that purposefully.

9) White balance: cameras and phones have white balance settings, for a reason :-)
  • it's a very good idea to ensure that the white balance matches the type of lighting you're using while shooting.
  • Read this and this to get a good understanding.
  • White balance is often best set at the camera or phone, but it can also be adjusted in editing software.
  • Especially with phone shooting, if you're adjusting/correcting white balance using editing software, you'll often get a more accurate, more natural result by placing the white balance eyedropper on the chrome or steel rather than a pure white area.
  • White balance can be used artistically to "warm up" or "cool down" natural lighting.

10) Practice, practice, practice. There is no substitute for taking lots of photos and learning from the results.
Some more watch photos, all taken in the one of the light b0xes I've used.

After you've taken the shot, you'll need to edit it...


Crop your shot for best effect, fix mistakes, and adjust  lighting:

1) It's always best to start with the best photo you can, so pay attention while you're shooting and you won't have as much to do when editing.

2) Edit the large photo or crop, then resize it for its intended use. A large photo reduced in size will almost always still look excellent, but a small photo resized larger will almost always look bad, or terrible.

2) Although it is very possible to do good photo editing on a phone, I strongly suggest editing on a computer or tablet. That way, you're working with a larger image, and it's much easier to see details, flaws and distractions that might not be obvious on a phone.

 There are many choices for editing software for phone and computer with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom (phone or computer) being the easy first choices in many peoples' minds. These programs are highly capable, they have years of development behind them, and they are "industry standards" for good reason.  But the computer versions can be expensive (PC and Mac subscriptions), and they can both be intimidating for novice photographers. So I'm going to suggest some free  alternatives.

Suggested free PC photo editing software:
  • Photoscape X - I highly recommend this free software. Although I have both P'shop and Lightroom, this is still the editor  I use  98% of the time, for watches and all my other photography. There's a huge number of tutorials at the site. I purchased the full ("Pro") version to support the author, but the free version is more than capable for most folks' purposes. For PC and Mac.

    IrfanView - Although IrfanView has a number of good editing functions, I don't use it for that. But I always use it as the default image viewer on my PC.

Suggested Free Android photo editing software:
  • Mix by 360. The link opens in Google Play on my phone but not on my computer. Free with for-pay extras, but works well stock.
  • Snapseed. The link opens in Google Play on my phone but not on my computer. Excellent.
  • PhotoDirector. Same. Some ads and paid add-ons, but the free version is still very capable.

I can't say much about Iphone photo editing software because I don't use one. No insult intended; I know they're excellent phones, but I shoot Samsung S8+ and Huawei P30Pro. Still, Mix by 360 is available for Iphone, and it's great fun.

(Note: I also have and sometimes use...
...But I still use Photoscape X for almost everything I do. DXO Photolab might be #2; it's very, very good.)

This post is useless without more pictures?

To finish off, here's some more examples of my watch photography, this time concentrating on wrist shots--and almost all taken in the light box. Click for larger. If you want to see more of my shooting (watches and scenery) look all over the website. With very few exceptions (and apologies for poor shooting, sometimes) it's almost all my photography. Where it's not, I say so.