Bernard, this is something that has been bugging me for a long time now, maybe you can explain. How is it possible that even a few-hour shoot of a product is more expensive than a rendering? Are the rendering rates that cheap? I'd figure a good rendered image takes 2-4 hours at the very least...
I completely understand the issue about prototypes. I've shot more than my share of wooden and plaster mockups, but for catalog work, for example? I don't get it.
(... the title of this thread totally cracks me up. We did a review of the Canon 5DM2 vs the iPhone as a joke, and that's all I think of when I see it! LOL)
I was about to write this earlier,
its a common miscoception that rendering times are the biggest concern in 3D. Much more demanding is setup time, the time needed until you can render.
Of course its hard to generalize, depending on the complexity of the product and enviroment (reflections, refractions and complicated light) a rendering can indeed take hours. But even in this case you have the flexibility to re-render anytime and to re-use it for animations once set up. I would say the more common time would be anything betwheen 10-30 minutes. And its not that render times are out of your control. You are the master, and you build the scene with the resulting rendertime in mind, and optimize accordingly. Also even if an image takes 5 hours, on a multicore it runs in the background and doesnt disturb you, you can do other things in the meantime.
So as an example, for product shoots, if you have the CAD data, that takes you maybe 30 minutes (maybe 2 minutes, maybe 2 hours) reorganizing, after that you could put in some default materials, default light setups, tune it a bit, and push the render button. Half a day, done. If you are a beginner, you will take days to complete, if that is enough because you have to learn the basics, but if you do this stuff regulary you get quite fast. I've done many technical product renderings in the past, I imagine to recreate the iPhone Shoot quick'n'dirty at screen res including creating a fast model would take MAX 1-2 hours or so, rendering time maybe 20 seconds in this case.
I once talked with a photographer who did product shoots, he saw how you could fire out quick 5 minute renderings of finished product scenes at different camera angles, he described that experience as "scary".
So 3D is very much time and effort in the beginning, but once all is set-up and you only need to change small things, it gets much much faster. Photos will no doubt continue to have their uses also in product shootings, but 3D is way, way more flexible.
