lighting - What must I buy to take amazing product photos?

I'm looking to do some very high quality professional looking shots for my collection of various items. They are not big items, imagine camera collection or lens collection etc. What must I buy to be able to do shots similar to these?

I know there are a few discussions here that covered these kind of things. But I'm looking specifically for an ability to do the kind of shot that has a cool reflection at the bottom like the image above. Also, dramatic lighting not just even lighting on the entire object.

Answer

Wow. That is analogous to asking a top chef in a top restaurant what you would need to buy to make food as good as his. Or perhaps asking a surgeon what you would need to buy to be able to repair hearts like he did.

So, now that I have made my point on experience, practice and skill, I will make an attempt to answer your question:

Images such as these are carefully composed, in a controlled studio, with lights, modifiers and likely a bit of photoshop (in the case of this image). You can see it is smoothly lighted from the back, top. The front is either reflected, or using a low power light as the accent.

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  So for the image of the bike, there are likely 3, perhaps 4, studio lights. They appear to be modified with snoots or grids, and likely are softboxes rather than umbrellas.

  
  


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  It is sitting on a reflective surface, likely a piece of lexan.

  
  


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  The backdrop is a smooth paper or perhaps a cyclorama.

  
  


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  Camera, lens and I suspect a tripod. This image appears to be metered for the top lighting, so any ambient has mostly been removed with settings, suggesting a slow shutter speed. Otherwise, there is no way of knowing the studio conditions.

  
  
  

The colored lights look suspiciously like Photoshop. In fact the entire image does in some ways. This entire image is easily possible with Photoshop in the hands of a skilled artist.

So you would need:

4 studio lights softboxes, grids, snoots for lights background or cyclorama in studio lexan sheet material Photoshop Camera, lens Tripod

The car is similar. Its on a reflective glass or plastic sheeting, it is lit from the top and front. Softboxes and grids. Metered for key, therefore the background doesn't matter, and there likely is not one.