Beginners Studio Lighting

[Red]

I had my first photo shoot with a model yesterday. Very low budget afair, and I'd say over all it went Good. She was great, I made 2 minor errors that unfortunately are directly related and made each other worse.

A few weeks ago I went out with my medium camera bag and tripod only to discover my tripod mount was in my big camera bag! D'Oh! So I moved it to my more frequently used medium bag. Yesterday I took the big bag. Can you guess what happened? :lol:

A pretty big mistake. Combine that with my home made lighting not being as good as I thought it would be and you have handheld long exposures! :mad: Result = lots of blurred shots and hours in Photoshop.

After this I have decided the lighting purchases are more iminent than previously thought, so have been reading the posts on the forum for tips and hints in the purchasing


Hopefully this thread can become a keeper for peple in my situation looking to make that next big investment after the camera and decent lenses.

I think I've got a good idea about a basic setup, but will leave it to the more knowledgable, just in case I say something that needs correcting and get everyone confused!

So please fire away with your advise and cheap tips for a budget studio. Any deals and locations (UK esp) for cheaper equipment would also be good.

[Red]

I'll go first:

Monokote! It's called something else in the UK, but it's stuff that's used to cover model airplanes. You stick it to the plane with some heat, then use a hairdryer to get the bubbles out. You buy it in model shops. I got a 1.5m length, about 2ft wide, of chrome effect stuff for £5.
Make a stiff frame, stick it to the edge with an iron and get it drum tight with a hairdryer. Make a cheap reflector, or if you manage to get the chrome stuff like I did, can be used as a mirror.
More than that, string can be taped to the rear and tugged to create warping effects!

[Headcase650]

Here is a copy from a post I made on fred M board a few weeks ago. Thought you mike like the read.

When my girlfriend and I started doing portraits out of our home we knew very little about lighting and it was suggested by some to get continous lighting to learn with because you get what you see. Many will disagree but you can learn alot with continous lighting for very little money and you dont even need to shoot a single frame. We bought a $175 smith victor 3 light kit with two 500w photoflood,one 250w photoflood, 2 stands with 33 inch umbrellas, one boom stand and a small hairlight reflector. We used these for more than a year. Major disadvantages is heat, not enough light output (had to shoot at ISO 400 to get proper exposure, apitures around 3.5-5.6 with shutter speed between 60 and 100th of a second so depth of field was very shallow. We had also purchased a canon 550ex flash gun for outdoor shooting to use as fill flash but never used it in the studio because mixing light tempitures didnt work out very well even with a custome white balance. The smith vector hotlights have payed for themselves many times over. About a month ago I started looking into studio strobes and I learned that monolights get pretty expensive, you can easily spend a thousand dollars on a set of alien bees. I was talking to another photographer one day in a local camera shop and he suggested vivitar flash guns and shooting them in the umbrellas we already had. I wound up getting two vivitat 283 flash guns($80 used), two ac power cords for ($45), two slave shoes ($50) and two vivitat variablepower modules for the flash guns so I can set the output from full down to 1/64th ($50). I also picked up a used polaris flash meter for $45.

Heres the set up we are using now.

Digital rebel on trypod about 10 feet from subject using tamron 27-75 2.8 lens, camera in manual mode shutter 1/60th apiture at f11 and we always use a custome white balance

Canon 550ex on flash bracket above camera in manual mode set to 1/4-1/2 power bouncing off cieling to light up the background behind subject

mount vivitar 283 to slave shoe, then to lightstand shooting into umbrella. Set up your umbrells and flash output for desired lighting effect and ratios determined my your flash meter.

Now when we snap the shot the 550ex fires and trips the two vivitars and it works very well in a smallish studio say 12x16 feet. I also dont think anyone will complain about properly exposed shots at f11, the focal plane is fairly deep so we can handle groups of four people easily. If you want to get more creative and use a shallow depth of field just dial the flash guns down and re meter you apiture until you get the desired effect.

Pros to this setup
great for small studios doing up to 4 people
very inexpinsive compaired to mono lights
very portable, flashes fit in a small bag and weighs less than my camera bag
can be set up in less than 10 or 15 minutes for location shots (we actually took them to a clients house to do family portraits in frot of their fireplace ands christmas tree, if your not getting enought light bump up your ISO to 200)
can be used with inexpinsive light stands because they dont weigh anything
can be used with AA batteries if no power source is available

Cons to this set up
They dont put out enough light for large groups
Recycle time using ac adapter is 10 seconds when shooting full power. More difficult when shooting small children that dont want to cooperate or sit still.

I post this as an alternative to spending $1000 on monolights, If your needs dont justify the spending there are less expinsive ways to get incredible portraits.

The vivitar 283 has been on the market for over 20 years and they havent changed a single thing about them, still make them today and will probably still be making them in 5 years, there are many accesories for them, and they are cheap. Look on ebay there are tones of them.

Adrian

[petewa]

would something like this be a good start?
not goign to cost me an arm and a leg!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=30087&item=7517540326&rd=1

[MTalley]

FWIW, I haven't had a lot of chances to play around with it yet, but here's my budget light setup:

One older Vivitar 2000 shoe-mount flash with a GN of about 80. ($40 a few years ago)
A newer Vivitar DF200 optical slave flash with a GN of 92 and 4 output power settings. ($70 at B&H)
Wein SafeSync hotshoe adapter. ($50 at B&H)
15' PC Male-to-female cord. ($10 at B&H)
Two 6' light stands ($40 total at B&H)
Two 30" White satin umbrellas ($32 total at B&H)
Two Light Stand brackets for umbrellas/hot shoes ($28 total at B&H)

Total: $270

I use the PC cord from the Wein SafeSync to trigger the older Vivitar unit. The newer one is set to trigger off first flash. Each one is mounted to an umbrella bracket on a light stand with the umbrella in front of the head. I've found that shooting through the umbrellas is about as bright as bouncing off them back to the subject, but provides a little softer light.

Looks like it'll work well for one or two people for portraits or part-body poses. Might even work for one person, full body pose, maybe with an inexpensive reflector. All in all, makes a pretty nice two-light setup that's totally portable (all battery operated).

With the holiday weekend, I'll get my daughter to pose for me and post some actual people shots.

[PhotosGuy]

Vivitars have their place, but not for serious studio portraiture. While they can be VERY handy on location, I don't think that they will give you the flexibility and control which you will need in the studio. Bloo is right. There are always 2 in my bag & they've been there for about 40 years. They never die or let you down, so they can be great for "peace-of-mind" backups when you're using higher powered equipment.
You can get very precise control with them if you use the Varipower instead of the sensor, but the recycle time at full output in a portrait situation is good only in a very relaxed environment. Keep them in mind for location work, but if you're going to be doing a lot of fast paced model work, then you should bite the bullet & get some higher powered lights with a fast recycling time.