Homemade studio questions

Hi everyone, I'm new here and have been perusing the posts and learning a lot. I have a few quick questions and I'm

hoping your expertise will rub off on me!

 

I am only about a year into serious photography and I shoot with a Canon DSLR and I have a 18-55mm lens. I do a

lot of portrait sessions for my friends, especially baby photos and I feel like I've gotten some great results with my

lens, especially with all I've learned using Photoshop for post editing.

 

Here are my problems. I live in Alaska and now that winter is approaching, the option of shooting outdoors (my

preference) is pretty much non-existent, especially with babies. When i shoot indoors, I have a black backdrop that I

can make look great in post production and I also have a white backdrop that I struggle with. I get lots of shadows

and glare. I use my standard flash without much lighting help and I'm wondering if I should invest in some lighting

options or if I just need to learn to use my aperture and flash better? Because of the size of my studio (and by that I

mean family room) my subjects are usually backed up to the backdrop making shadows even worse. Should I be

looking at a lense that will help me get the subjects off the backdrop but still prevent me from shooting up their noses

or is there a simpler solution?

 

Thanks a bunch!

Rachelle

You need to learn about lighting before you buy more lenses. Lenses will not help your problem. Read some of the lighting tutorials available here and at Chuck Gardner's site http://super.nova.org/DPR/ and at www.strobist.com. You can do successful portraits with a couple of speed lights (Canon 420/520 series) and a little knowledge.

 

<Chas>

As Charles has pointed out, its not your lenses - its the light (its almost ALWAYS the light). You need to know how best to control the light you've got available. For example, if you've only got one light (flash), then find a way to use it with a diffuser or reflector to soften harsh shadows. I'm not a Canon user so I don't know what you mean by 'standard' flash, but if you've got a Canon with a tiltable head, you may want to consider something like Gary Fong's Lightsphere - they are pretty inexpensive and work wonders. --Rich

Probably one of the most important concepts to learn in studio lighting is that the smaller the relative size of the

light, the harder the shadows are regardless of the intensity of the light. By relative size I mean the farther a light is

from your subject, the smaller its relative size just as something appears smaller the farther away it is.

 

 

To reduce shadows, you must soften your light. To soften your light, you must create as much of a wrap around

light source (as large as possible). One of the greatest mentors of light is the late Dean Collins. He was a genius at

conveying concepts, and even invented a series of very useful studio lights that you can build yourself out of pvc

tubing. He called it "Tinker Tubes". You can download the small book from online: <p class=MsoNormal><a

href="http://www.software-cinema.com/page/tinkertubes">Dean

Collins' Tinker Tube Book</a></p><div></div>