giggles Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 I am in the process of building a new garage with a photography studio overhead. My studio will be 14' x 36'. I specialize in children's portraits. I have a blank canvas and need some help on choosing overhead lighting, flooring, color on the walls etc. Is hardwood better or carpet? If I bounce off of side walls or the ceilings does the color make a difference? Should I make it into two rooms (one for studio 14' x 20' and one for lobby 14' x 16') or leave one open room? How much room do I need for a changing room? My ceilings will only 8 1/2' high so that is one negative. Again, I have a blank room and need help designing it so any help from your experiences would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_levine Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 The low ceiling could be a big issue getting hair lights high enough,etc. Many think that white is the "best" color to paint the walls. White is fine if you always shoot high key photos. Try getting a high light ratio (low key shot)in a white room. The white walls allow too much light to bounce around. You never want to use any color on the walls if you plan on shooting color film. Even a lightly tinted color paint will bounce back light that color onto your subjects. The size (14x20) is great though. This makes moving lights easy, and let's you use longer focal length lenses (at the proper distances). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blakley Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 The studio I've rented from time to time has one matte black wall and one white wall adjacent each other; you might want to have a black wall and two white walls (so you have an all-white corner if you need it.) I find it very nice to have a black background I don't have to hang from a stand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giggles Posted August 23, 2005 Author Share Posted August 23, 2005 Thanks Steve and Bob.... The idea of one black wall and one white wall is great.... I guess you never did recommend a color, Steve. Do you have a preference? Does flooring matter much? What do you guys use? Would hardwood make the stands more stable or less stable? Should I have any overhead lights to accent on some occasions? What do you recommend? I am pretty new to this so the whole technical aspects are pretty foreign to me. Thanks again for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhneely Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 Here's an idea so crazy it just might work...build a light into your ceiling to use as a hair light. Have a switch on the wall to turn it off when you don't want the hairlight. No, I don't want money for this amazing idea, just eternal gratitude. If it works, if it doesn't work, don't blame me, you were the one crazy enough to actually try it. In reality, as I think about it, there would be some challenges...you wouldn't be able to change the intensity very easily, or move it around much. On the upside, you could craft a scrim to use as a light panel/softbox sort of thing for soft, overhead lighting (not sure how that would be used, but it gives some flexibility to the notion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giggles Posted August 23, 2005 Author Share Posted August 23, 2005 Brian - what if I used one of those small poseable spotlights on a moveable sliding track between my backdrop and subject. Does that make sense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken dennis Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 Emily! I don't have a studio set up as yet, but I have been doing a lot of research on the subject, so far the advice that I have taken to heart is that for a wall, floor and ceiling color, you want to use a neutral Gray in the area that you plan to shoot in, because in a studio, you want to be in control of all the light that gets bounced around, and a flat neutral Gray will not reflect light, but a white wall will, and it may reflect light where you don't want it, and you can always use a reflective surface if you need to bounce light! You don't have to use gray on all the surfaces inside the studio, you can do this with one whole corner of the room, and still do an all white to the other corner, and make some stand alone panels to use to section them off, you can make the panels out of PVC pipe, and some black nylon windbreaker material, using the same PVC design you can use a white windbreaker material for diffusion panels "This I can testify that they do work, I use them both myself at this time for portrait work in my home" If you would like, I can draw up the plans for the pipe panel configuration and email them to you, they are not difficult to make, cheap to build, and they are very handy, they can even be taken apart and used on location shoots. As to your ceiling hight, 12 foot would be better, but an 8 foot is workable, especially in your case, where you specialize in children portraiture, if you have the funds for it, Manfrotto has a really great track light system that you might want to check out! Now to the floor, the question of either carpet or wood, in this case, its just a matter of personal preference, but just keep in mind the neutral Gray, you don't want light bouncing off the floor, and going where you don't want it, so a neutral Gray berber or some other tight weave carpet would work fine, or just paint the floor with a flat neutral Gray paint! I'M more inclined to be in favor of a hard painted floor, it would be easier to keep clean, stands would be easier to move around, at least the ones that I have that has wheels on them, and you never know, at some point you may decide to try something creative that may require a liquid of some sort getting spilled on the floor, and besides, you can always keep a few carpet remnants handy for times that you want to create settings that look like a home, home depot also has this great snap together hard wood flooring that can be unsnapped and stored if a hard wood floor is needed in a shot! One last thing, and you didn't mention, will there be windows to the outside? A window can make for some great natural dramatic lighting, and can always be covered when need be, and with the diffusion panels I mentioned earlier, the light can be controlled! I hope some of this halps! Ken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beepy Posted August 24, 2005 Share Posted August 24, 2005 Is there any possibility of (1) leaving the ceilings open allowing you to put lights higher at times, and (2) possibly adding diffusing skylights to bring in natural light during the day? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giggles Posted August 24, 2005 Author Share Posted August 24, 2005 Ken - Thank you for your detailed response. I would love your diffusion panel plans - no hurry whenever you have time... I think I'll do the gray paint. It makes sense. My studio will be in a loft over our new garage. Do you suggest just painting the plywood subfloor or maybe I could use those vinyl tiles. I usually have my backdrops on the floor so I won't capture the flooring. I'll probably buy a carpet remnant for the waiting/office portion. Since I only do this on the side, I don't have much funding and would rather be practical & cost efficient. Once it picks up I will redesign, I hope. I'll have two windows on each end of the loft so not much natural light. Again...I appreciate your help and will use it. Thanks again. Beepy - I wish I could use skylights but the roof is going to be built with a truss system where the studs are two feet apart. I checked into doing a hand frame construction but the price would go up significantly and my husband said no way... I am lucky he is agreeing to letting me do anything at all. As far as he is concerned I should just take pictures of our kids and stick with appraising (I'm a real estate appraiser). Anyways...thanks for the idea it is a great one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhneely Posted August 25, 2005 Share Posted August 25, 2005 A track for the hairlight would be a great idea. In my mind's eye, I saw the light built into the ceiling, but on a track would be better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken dennis Posted August 25, 2005 Share Posted August 25, 2005 Hi Emily. You could use vinyl flooring as long as its not the type that has a shine, as any shinny surface will reflect light, but if you do use as such, keep some throw rugs handy, and use them to cover the area that your shooting in, if you use your backdrop on the floor, then you probably wouldn't need but maybe a couple throws! I don't think I would go with a painted sub floor, the flooring would soak up an awful lot of paint, and wouldn't look to appealing, not to mention splintering and such, and as an after thought, if you do go with the vinyl flooring, it would look better, and doing as I stated above, as your doing the shoot, you could use a couple of the PVC panels with the black material to protect your area of the shoot from receiving any reflected or incidental light from the rest of the studio! "I knew those panels would have even more uses, and I'M sure I've only touched on a few, I personally know of several pro photographers that swear by them" :o) I'll try and get some plans drawn out to send you by some time next week, and I'll take some pics of the ones that I have made, so you can see what they look like, I painted mine with flat black paint, so they look like something that was factory made. As a last note, if you don't already have your studio strobes and related items purchased yet, keep an eye open for any existing studios that are going out of business, thats how I came by my lighting system, and its really overkill with all that I received, and I purchased everything for peanuts, just pennies on the dollar, I have sold off a few way overkill items on that on-line auction site that we all know and love, and recouped all my original investment, so now I have just enough left over to setup 2 studios, "it doesn't hurt to have backup stuff" and virtually no money invested, as an initial investment, in order to keep costs down, this could be the way to go for you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken dennis Posted August 25, 2005 Share Posted August 25, 2005 One more thing! As to your over head lighting system problem, there are about as many ways to put a light overhead on a movable system as there are birds in the sky, boom and clamps is how I do it, but if you want something a little more permanent and non intrusive, you may want to conceder an articulating boom arm, attached to either the wall or ceiling with a bracket, heres a link to B&H's section on just items that are for studio setups, have a look: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=NavBar&A=FetchChildren&Q=&ci=1172 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giggles Posted August 26, 2005 Author Share Posted August 26, 2005 Thanks sooo much Ken - I looked into the systems on BH and you are right there are so many options....sure overwhelm me some more:-) I will have to check them all out along with the budget. I also saw the Delta backdrop track systems. My main shooting area will be against the 14' wall. Could I get by with the 16' rail or do you recommend going larger? I would love to permanently hang my larger backdrops and use my portable stand for my 6' x 9' BDs. Do you use something like this? They seem fairly reasonable which in the photography world makes me nervous. I will probably only have 4-7 large backdrops total. Thanks again for all your help...I'll make sure to send pictures when this thing is complete. Emily Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken dennis Posted August 26, 2005 Share Posted August 26, 2005 What I have is 2 Bogen auto-pole expan drive systems, each will hold 3 backdrops, and for a portable I use a bogen mdl# 314 support system, at this time I only have 3 hand painted canvas backdrops, 2 are by Denny manufacturing, ( You can check them out here: http://www.dennymfg.com/ ) they are from their Old Masters collection, and 1 that we painted ourselves that was just a plain white canvas, I also have 3 large muslins as well, right now I'M setting up in my dinning room when I shoot a portrait, "no permanent studio as of yet" so I've been just using my portable! The 16 foot that you refer to, is that a rail system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giggles Posted August 31, 2005 Author Share Posted August 31, 2005 Yes - Ken it is a rail system that you attach the backdrops to and slide them when you want to use a particular one. I think I am going to purchase one and hope that it works.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce_smith8 Posted January 30, 2007 Share Posted January 30, 2007 You may benifit from taking a studio portrait workshop. Hands on learning can not be beaten. Bruce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason_e Posted March 3, 2009 Share Posted March 3, 2009 <p>8-1/2' ceilings will be perfectly fine ... unless you have a session with a 6' tall 5 year old =) The 14 foot width will limit you a little bit for larger sets, but you should be able to work around that.<br> I wouldn't take up too much of the space for a lobby. You just need a small, small lobby. If you schedule your sessions over the phone you'll hardly ever have more than a few people waiting in your lobby.<br> It sounds like it's going to be a nice studio!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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