Budget home studio practice

<p>I'm looking for tips on practicing and trying out new techniques and methods during the dark winter nights. Currently I have a new D90 with a 50mm 1.4 and a 18-55. I feel that I have a good understanding of most of the settings and styles, but would like to ask the forum what else can I photograph as a challenge or setups to try out.</p>

<p>Idealy I would like to go out and buy a SB-600, but currently my budget is minimal, so I would like to ask for ideas that can be built with a minimal budget.</p>

<p>So far I have tried photographing a watch and other small items. I used paper and two desk lamps to build a small light box, also found that a small mirror in front of the built-in flash, at 45%, can be used as a simple "bounce flash" with quite good results.</p>

<p>This challenge is practice before spring, and also a way to master and further develop styles. What items are a challenge to photograph, and what light solutions would you employ?</p>

<p>Off-shoe lighting is essential -- at least a main and a fill. You can even do it on a small budget:</p>

<p>You can buy very cheap halogen floods at a hardware store. Use custom WB. Diffuse the light by shining it through white bed sheet material at maybe 2-3 ft from the light source. Be careful not to let anything catch on fire!</p>

<p>A step up from that would be a couple of cheap, used Vivitar 283 or 285 flashes off of Ebay for a budget of less than $100. You'll have to figure out how you're going to trigger them. You can use a very long PC cord to trigger one and a $10 Sonia optical slave to trip the other. Stands help, but you can also use cheapo tripods ($15 on clearance variety) when combined with the Sonia slaves (which have tripod-mount bases). If you go with two optical slaves, you'll need to trigger with the built-in flash, probably using the little 45 deg reflector you made. As with the halogen floods, you can diffuse the light by shooting through white bed sheet material hanging maybe 2-3 ft in front of the flashes or by bouncing the light against foam core board.</p>

<p>Have fun!</p>

<p>Buy "Light - Science & Magic" for lots of ideas and excercises for shooting small items in the studio. From the book you will learn how light works and how to control it, the essential first steps in studio photography.</p>

<p><Chas><br /></p>

<p>Seat them next to a window, and bounce some light off something white for fill. A sheet of white foam core board works well. With practice you can mimic a $1000 light kit for free.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Seat them next to a window, and bounce some light off something white for fill. A sheet of white foam core board works well. With practice you can mimic a $1000 light kit for free.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You can emulate "some aspects" of a $1000 light kit for free this way. But you will not have accent lights, you cannot light a backdrop separately, and your only control over light direction is by turning the subject.</p>

<p>Product photography does not usually lend itself to a one-light-and-reflector approach. For inspiration, look at ads from high-end watch and jewelry manufacturers in magazines. Careful analysis of shadows and reflections will often provide many clues to how a particular shot was lit.</p>

<p>The good news about product photography is that the subject doesn't move, and won't complain about getting hot. That allows you to use inexpensive continuous lights that in turn require long exposure times. If you use fluorescent or CFL lamps, make sure they have a CRI (color rendering index) greater than 90, otherwise you'll have trouble correcting the color temperature in post processing.</p>

<p><Chas><br /></p>

 

<p>White ripstop nylon material is a good diffuser. You can hang that over a window on a sunny afternoon to get some nice soft natural diffused light for any type of subject, especially some nice ambient light portraits. You can get ripstop nylon from any fabric store. Use tacs, pins, or just duct-tape to cover the window while the shoot is in progress.</p>

 

<p>To take photos of vintage cameras, I use a vintage Honeywell Stobonar 710 strobe mounted to a tripod, bounced off a pair of 2' by 3' hand-held foamcore sheets held at a pretty broad angle (maybe 120 degrees) about six feet from the product. I take my shots with an HP digital point-and-shoot whose built-in flash is deflected backwards (as you do with your mirror) toward a Wein peanut optical sensor attached to the Honeywell strobe. The camera is mounted to a tripod. After I compose the shot, I set the timer on, trip the shutter, step back and grab the foamcore, and hold them up to catch and reflect the flash.</p>

<p>I found the Honeywell at the Salvation Army, for $10. Its built-in rechargeable battery no longer holds a charge, but the unit came with a power cord, so I just plug it in the wall. The Wein Peanut cost about $30, I think. Before I "found" a grey seamless background, I used a sheet of 11" by 17" copy paper.</p>

<p>

<p>

<p>Thanks for you input and advice, I'll play around with ideas before getting some nicer speed lights.<br>

Just wondering, how much light a SB-600 have compared to a 100 watt bulb? Is there a standard to measure light intensity?</p>

<p>I thought someone else would have answered this one by now...</p>

<p>Raphael, there is no useful way to compare a hot light (e.g. a 100W bulb) with a flash. Almost any flash puts out incredibly bright light for a very short duration (maybe 1/500 sec and less, depending on power) Therefore it doesn't matter whether you shoot at, say, 1/125 or 1/60. The exposure will be the same. On the other hand, exposed with a 100W bulb, the exposure will be a stop greater at 1/60 than at 1/125. You can use both types of lighting at the same time, but you need to control the light color, and any change in your shutter speed will change the balance of the lights. When doing this, a change in shutter speed will change the balance between your hot lights and your flashes. Finally, you can shoot at any speed with a light bulb, but flashes have syncronization speed limitations that are partially overcome with "high speed synchronization" (at a cost of apparent power).</p>

<p>My advice is that you use either hot lights or flashes, but not both. If you use both (as a beginner), also buy a bottle of aspirin.</p>

<p>Finally, you specified "cheap" in your initial query. You got several "cheap" answers, including mine. The SB-600 isn't consistent with "cheap," especially if you plan to get more than one. FAIW, you can together an entire lighting outfit (with multiple flashes, slaves, and modifiers) for the cost of a single SB-600, if you spend your money carefully. That's not to say that an SB-600 wouldn't be useful. As a Canon photographer, I own one of the SB-600's older counterparts, the 550EX, which I use on rare occasions for on-shoe lighting. However, almost all of my artificially lit shots are off-shoe, using two or more Vivitar 285hv flashes. My 550EX mostly gathers dust. </p>

<p>The issue with a Vivitar on some cameras is that the trigger voltage CAN be too high for the camera and can damage the electronics. This is not a problem off-shoe. The Vivitar flashes also do not have TTL, ETTL and ETTL-II communications. There's no intelligent communication with the camera. However, the Vivitar flashes are extremely powerful and consistent and are actually used extensively by pros for mobile lighting.</p>

<p>If you have enough money to buy multiple speedlites and want to equip yourself for studio lighting, check out some lower-end studio lighting, such as manufactured by Alien Bees.</p>

<p>Good luck, and have fun!</p>