Enhance your watch photography

Enhance your watch photography using tilt-shift! – Watch on YouTube

Lay flat photography has become a staple in product photography, especially when it comes to showcasing intricate items like watches and other tech. However, capturing every detail in sharp focus can be tricky if you don’t want to angle the camera perfectly downwards. Enter the tilt-shift macro lens – a game-changer for watch photography. In this article, we will show you how enhance your watch photography using tilt-shift to maximise the in-focus areas of your shots, even if they are not straight on.

What is a Tilt-Shift Lens?

Firstly, we need to cover what tilt shift is, and why it’s important. A tilt-shift lens is a special type of lens that allows you to:

• Tilt: Adjust the angle of the lens relative to the camera sensor, changing the plane of focus.
• Shift: Move the lens parallel to the sensor, correcting perspective distortions.

For watch photography, the tilt function is the star of the show, enabling you to align the focus plane with the watch face angle even if you’re not looking straight-on.

Why Use a Tilt-Shift Lens for Watch Photography?

Perfect Focus on Angular Surfaces

Watches and other products (even some food) often have slightly inclined or curved faces. A tilt-shift lens lets you match the focus plane to the watch face’s angle, ensuring edge-to-edge sharpness.

If the watch face is flat, it means you can offset the angle of your camera slightly, while maintaining focus across the whole watch face.

Minimized Post-Processing

By achieving precise focus in-camera, you reduce the need for extensive retouching or focus stacking in post-production.

Enhanced Creativity

Tilt-shift lenses also allow for creative effects like selective focus, adding a unique touch to your compositions. Perhaps you want to shoot downwards, but still have only a small section of your shot in focus. With a normal lens, this would not be possible!

Setting Up Your Shot

Step 1: Choose the Right Lens

Look for a tilt-shift macro lens with a short minimum focusing distance. For these shots, we used the Laowa 55mm f/2.8 Tilt-shift 1X Macro. This is ideal for getting close to things like our watches.

Step 2: Position Your Subject

Place the watch flat on your shooting surface. Use props like small stands or adhesive putty to angle the watch face if you want, but try to keep them hidden from the view of the camera. Otherwise keep the watch flat on the surface like we did.

Step 3: Adjust Your Camera Angle

Mount your camera on a sturdy tripod and position it directly above the subject for a true lay flat perspective with an angled subject, or from a slight angle if you want to take advantage of the capabilities of the tilt shift lens on a flat watch.

Step 4: Tilt the Lens

Use the tilt function to align the focus plane with the watch face. Small adjustments make a big difference, so go slowly. We highly recommend turning of the focus peaking setting in your camera to get a preview of where the plane of focus lies in the shot. The goal is to get all of the watch face in focus at once, other parts of the image are less important.

Don’t forget Lighting!

Watch photography, and product photography in general benefits from even, shadow-free lighting. Make sure to use a diffused light source, or several from different angles.

You can easily experiment with the placement of your lights to reduce or eliminate reflections. Use an LED Light source like the Adaptalux Studio to make your life easy. You will be able to make adjustments on the go and see the results live in the camera viewfinder or screen.

Don’t be afraid to add a little colour too, we used some green light to match the highlights on the watch!

Using a tilt-shift macro lens for watch photography elevates your work to a professional level. By aligning the focus plane with the angle of the watch face, you can capture stunning, detail-rich images that stand out. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or just starting, mastering this technique will open new creative possibilities and get the most detail in every shot.

Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more macro photography tutorials, ideas and inspiration!