Product shot list
A product photography shot list template
Four groups ordered by what has to be lit and built rather than by what the client listed them in, a duration on every row, and the tags that turn one list into the delivery folders afterwards.
13 shots in 4 groups, 9 of them marked must-have, 3h 1m of shooting before you add travel, meals and the set-up at either end. Every column on it is explained in the shot list template.
Group by set-up, not by product
A product brief usually arrives as a list of products, each wanting a packshot, a detail, a flat lay and a lifestyle frame. Shot in that order it is four lighting changes per product, and a day of twelve products becomes forty-eight of them.
Turned sideways it is four set-ups: every packshot, then every detail, then every overhead, then everything in use. That is what the groups below are. Which product a row belongs to is a tag, so the list still re-folds into per-product folders for delivery without a row being moved.
Consistency is a decision made before the first frame
A listing page puts eight photographs side by side, and a camera height that drifts between them is visible there in a way it is not on the back of the camera. Fix the lens, the aperture and the height for a group and write them on the row, so the second half of the range matches the first half after lunch.
The list
A — Packshots on white4 shots · 36m
One lighting set-up, one camera height, one lens, repeated across the range. Everything in this group is shot before anything is moved.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 1 | Front elevation, product centredSquare · Tags: EcommerceThe slow row, because it is where the light gets built. Everything else in the group inherits it. | MS | Eye level | Must-have | 12m |
| A 2 | Three-quarter, the angle the listing leads withSquare · Tags: Ecommerce, Hero | MS | High | Must-have | 8m |
| A 3 | Back and base, label and barcode legibleSquare · Tags: Ecommerce | MS | Eye level | Must-have | 8m |
| A 4 | Open, unfastened or in its second stateSquare · Tags: Ecommerce | MS | Eye level | Nice-to-have | 8m |
B — Detail and texture3 shots · 30m
The same set, re-angled for raking light. Grouped together because moving one light back and forth between a packshot and a detail costs the whole morning.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B 5 | Material, weave or grain under raking lightSquare · Tags: Detail | DET | Eye level | Must-have | 12m |
| B 6 | Logo, stitching or engravingLandscape · Tags: Detail, Hero | ECU | Eye level | Must-have | 10m |
| B 7 | Closure, catch, seam or jointPortrait · Tags: Detail | DET | Low | Nice-to-have | 8m |
C — Flat lays and the range3 shots · 55m
Overhead work is a different rig — the camera goes on a boom or a copy stand — so every overhead row is shot in one block rather than scattered through the day.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C 8 | Full range laid outSquare · Tags: CatalogueRebuilding this after it has been struck takes as long as building it. Shoot every variant of it now. | WS | Overhead / flat lay | Must-have | 25m |
| C 9 | One frame per colourway, same positionSquare · Tags: Catalogue, EcommerceDo not move the camera between colourways. The grid on the listing page is what shows a two-millimetre drift. | MS | Overhead / flat lay | Must-have | 20m |
| C 10 | Packaging, closed and openLandscape · Tags: Catalogue | MCU | Overhead / flat lay | Nice-to-have | 10m |
D — In use and in scale3 shots · 1h
The set is dressed and a hand or a model arrives, so this group is last and is the one that moves if the day runs short.
| Ref | Shot | Size | Angle | Priority | Est. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D 11 | Held in hand, for scalePortrait · Tags: LifestyleThe frame that answers how big it is. | MCU | Eye level | Must-have | 15m |
| D 12 | In situ on a styled surfaceLandscape · Tags: Lifestyle, Social | MWS | High | Must-have | 20m |
| D 13 | Slow push in on the heroSquare · Push in · 25 fps · Mute · 6s · Tags: SocialSix delivered seconds, and a twenty-five-minute set-up to get the slider and the light right. | MS | Eye level | Nice-to-have | 25m |
The letters are the groups’ positions and the numbers run down the whole list, so moving a group re-letters everything under it. The durations are round starting numbers rather than measurements — replace them with your own after the first shoot. How long a photoshoot takes goes through where a real number comes from.
The row that pays for the day is the first one in each group
Every group above has one long row and several short ones, because the long one is where the light is built and the short ones inherit it. That shape is what makes the estimated durations honest, and it is also why a shot dragged out of its group costs far more than its own duration — it takes a set-up with it.
Latentshoot totals each group from the rows underneath it and re-totals both groups when a shot moves between them, so the effect of that decision shows up before the day rather than at four o’clock on it. See the shot list.
What a tag is for on a product day
Tag rows by product line, by colourway or by where the image is going — a listing page, a campaign, a social cut — and the same list you shot from becomes the folder structure you deliver into. The difference between a group and a tag is worked through with a smaller product list as the example.
A product day is also where estimates get accurate fastest, because the same rows come round every time. Record what the packshot group actually took and the next brief’s estimate is a median of your own days rather than a round number. On-set mode is where that gets recorded.
Sizes, angles, priorities and the four fields a clip carries are the shot list’s own columns rather than a form invented for this page. Put the rows above into Latentshoot and the running order, the daylight band, the gear list and the call sheet are worked out from them.
Start this list in LatentshootFrequently asked
How many product photographs can be shot in a day?
It depends far more on how many set-ups the list needs than on how many products are on it. Twelve products through one packshot set-up is a comfortable morning; the same twelve products each needing their own styled surface is two days. Count the set-ups first and the products second.
Should a product shot list be organised by product or by set-up?
By set-up. Relighting between every row is the expensive part of a studio day, and a list ordered by product does exactly that. Put the product on the row as a tag instead, and the delivery still comes out per product with nothing reordered.
What should be on an ecommerce packshot list?
A front elevation, the three-quarter angle the listing leads with, the back and base where the label and barcode have to be legible, and any second state the product has — open, unfastened, assembled. Then a hand-held frame somewhere on the day, because scale is the question a listing photograph most often fails to answer.
Do clips belong on a product shot list?
Yes, on the same list rather than on a second one. A clip carries its move, its frame rate, whether sound is being recorded and its delivered length in seconds, and it is scheduled from the estimated duration like every other row — six delivered seconds is routinely half an hour of building.
No card. Groups, tags, durations and the four fields a clip carries are on the free plan as well as the paid ones.