Tips to improve your cleanroom photography
Cleanup on your next photography shoot
A portfolio of photographs that show off your cleanroom installations is an asset to have for your business, not only are they great for marketing but in time they will also serve as a high quality visual reference of all your legacy projects.
When a cleanroom installation is handed over to a client it is great to know that you have done a great job, many companies rely on phone snapshots during construction to record their progress but these are not suitable as a final record to show your cleanrooms in their best light. Quality images that can be used for advertising and marketing require a professional approach as the images will be the backbone of your brand and reputation.
When a handover has been completed it will likely be impossible to go back and photograph the installation, photography is often scheduled the days before handover when the project is having its final check and wipe down and floors repainted, etc. This will be the small window of opportunity to allow a professional photographer in to capture the best images possible.
Here are a few tips and reasons why a professional photographer will make the most of that opportunity:
1. Optically Perfect
A professional photographer will be using the highest quality optical equipment to photograph your cleanrooms, this will ensure that distortion and aberrations are reduced and that the tiniest details will be recorded. Having so much resolution and detail means that you can crop into smaller segments to highlight particular areas, should there be a question in the future about the installation you can always refer to the high resolution images for reference.
2. Neutral Colours
Colour in a room can look neutral to the human eye, it has a wonderful way of compensating for variances and it may not be possible to see that luminaire’s in a room are actually emitting different colour frequencies. A camera will accentuate these nuances and if left uncorrected will make a room look ugly, however with corrective measures in post production the skewed colours can be corrected to match the rest of the room. Professional images are captured in what is known as a raw state which allows them to be precisely manipulated in post production without any degradation of quality.
3. Supplemental Lighting
Good lighting in a cleanroom can make it look fresh, bright and sterile, however some areas in a room can look dark and unappealing, although this has no affect on the technical performance of a cleanroom, aesthetically it can have a negative impact on a potential client. We can bring up the illumination in those darker regions by adding supplemental lighting or equalising the exposure in different areas. Both approaches require pre-planning at the shooting stage and postproduction to make them look natural
4. Aesthetic Lighting
We intrinsically associate cooler tones with sterility and link colour in objects to the sense of touch. A well executed photograph will be able to deliver those senses to the viewer enabling them to feel the environment of the cleanroom and the materials within it. This is an aesthetic approach and relies on using subtle psychological techniques to instigate feelings that will help your prospective clients connect better with your products and services.
5. High Quality Retouching
Post production cleanup & colour correction is part and parcel of the photography process, however parts of the construction may need to be left unfinished due to the installation of machinery at some future date and these areas can look unsightly. Post production can be planned around these problems and plates captured in anticipation of retouching so that the images for your portfolio will look aesthetically pleasing and finished to a high standard.
6. Multiple Photography Shoot Dates
In some larger installations it is not uncommon for rooms to be completed before others, clients may be eager to move their equipment in to setup and test a production line in preparation for when the project is completed. If this happens the room will not likely be in a state to photograph ever again and there will often be pallets of equipment and spares in the room, testing equipment that cannot be moved and machines in various states of dismantlement. If this is a likely scenario it would be advisable to arrange photography of the room at an earlier stage before the rest of the project is completed.
7. Health & Safety
One of the things to be aware of especially if people are to be included in the photographs is health and safety regulations and making sure everyone looks compliant in the environment and process they are in. Once the window of opportunity for photography has gone there is no going back to reshoot the image and it could reflect badly on your own business practise if the photograph illustrates a process that is clearly staged wrongly.
I hope these few pointers will give an insight into just some of the planning that goes into a professionally constructed image of your cleanroom constructions. There are many unanticipated problems encountered during the shoot, large and small, however with the right pre-planning most of them can be overcome by careful lighting or post production.
If you are working on a project and would like to see how your installation could benefit from professional photography, please get in touch to see what we can do for you.