Setting up a home studio

[doctorcarla]

[i]Hi....

I am a beginner (own a Canon 10D) and don't know much about studio lighting, but want to set up a home studio in my basement, mainly to take portraits of children, adults, pets (don't expect to do groups). There is not much ambient light down there. I've been researching to determine which type of lighting would be best for a beginner (continuous or flash) and how many and which type of lights to get. I have read good things about the Alien Bees lights (flash) and was considering getting 4 b800 flash units with one giant softbox for my main light, & 2 umbrellas. Can anyone tell me if this sounds appropriate for me?? Also, how many electrical outlets will I need in the area to power my lights? Thanks in advance for any input.....

[robertwgross]

I will let the Alien Bees experts comment on that part.

When trying to organize room space for a studio, it is a good idea to follow this standard:

Around the walls of the room, have one duplex receptacle box every two feet. Further, you don't want them all on the same 15A or 20A circuit breaker. At a minimum, you would want to alternate the boxes onto two different breaker circuits.

The use of extension cords is only acceptable for temporary use.

However, fire codes vary from locality to locality.

---Bob Gross---

[shafiq]

I myself recently went through the same dilema as to which units to purchase for my home studio. After alot of research and soul searching :-) I went with a kit from Photogenic (3x 320ws) strobes. Waiting for UPS to deliver this Monday. Wish they delivered this Saturday...that way I would have had a chance to experiment. Ah well...I guess that will have to wait till next week end.

Anyway I would recommend Photogenic as I have many friends who have been using them and they are A1 quality. 1 thing I did note and that was the Photogenics went down to 1/2000 sec whilst the AlienBees only went as far as 1/1200 sec. Good luck.

[DaveG]

[i]Hi....

I am a beginner (own a Canon 10D) and don't know much about studio lighting, but want to set up a home studio in my basement, mainly to take portraits of children, adults, pets (don't expect to do groups). There is not much ambient light down there. I've been researching to determine which type of lighting would be best for a beginner (continuous or flash) and how many and which type of lights to get. I have read good things about the Alien Bees lights (flash) and was considering getting 4 b800 flash units with one giant softbox for my main light, & 2 umbrellas. Can anyone tell me if this sounds appropriate for me?? Also, how many electrical outlets will I need in the area to power my lights? Thanks in advance for any input.....

Without doubt I'd go with monolights or a small power pack unit. Under no conditions would I ever use hot lights. They are a bad burn - or a fire - waiting to happen. They're also are not very powerful. They're bright as heck, right up until you meter them and then "You mean that's it?"

There are problems with basement studios and the first is the lack of ceiling height, and the second is the lack of floor space. Flash's like to be set up high so they throw a more natural light. A regular ceiling is about 8' high and that's too low. If it was just your flash head it'd be OK, but you have to get the light modifier (umbrella or softbox) up there as well and then the whole light is too low.

You also will need room to separate the subject from the background. This is not only to blur the background - and gaussian blurr has taken the sting out of that - but so you have room to put a flash to light your background, or room to get a hair light behind the subject.

We all use small spaces in a pinch but I'd say that you need a meter (3') from the subject's stool to the background; 2 meters to the camera, and another three meters behind that. The room should give you four meters of clear space from side to side. Since most rooms are 4 meters (12') wide you should have no problems with that, unless there are shelves or other things stealing room. But you will also need some depth to the room that greater than four meters. Even with groups of two or three people you'll want to use a short telephoto lens and you'll need to get back.

In short, the space I've described is not your basement, unless it's very unusual. But it may well be your garage.