Home studio lighting set up

[Slika]

Hi everyone,

I'm in search for some answares regarding home studio lighting. I found this forum with Google last night and spent good 4hrs browsing through different topics on lighting realizing more and more how little I knew about the subject, tools & basic requirements :o - but let me begin at the start.

My wife and I have been enjoying photography for some 10 years for me & 5 years for her now, working mainly outdoors, indoors with natural lighting or with aid of Canon 380EX speedlite - meaning no experience with studio photography, but would like to do more photo's (babies, young kinds some portraits with proper lighting. We are now looking at setting aside some space in our basement for a home studio ( about 13' x 14' x 7.5' high) My wife is type of person that likes to jump into things, I on the other hand am totally opposite ;) . Initially she wanted to go with continuouse lighting but from reading differnt threads it seems most members here sugest going with strobe light ( brand Alian Bees being encountered many a times) So here are my questions: What would be a decent starter kit (strobe lights, umbrella, Light meter etc.) Do I need softbox or just go with brollybox? another question I guess is how do I hook up strobe light to the camera (I have a Sony DSC-F828 8 mega pixel cameraI would like to use) And a last question . . . for now, how does the whole slave set up work with strobe light. I hope I am not asking for too much - please enlighten me - any advice at this point is more that welcome!:D

[robertwgross]

That's a nice diagram.

The smoke detector might be very valuable if you use hot lights with diffusers.

---Bob Gross---

[Slika]

Also I understand my ceiling hight might pose as a problem?!

[Jon]

As this is a Canon digital camera forum, I don't think you'll find too many people who use the Sony you want to.
A 7.5 ft ceiling will keep you from getting the lights very far over the subject, especially if you want to use an umbrella or soft box. If the flashes you get don't include slave capability, you can buy separate slave attachments that will use the main flash' light to trigger the flashes they're attached to. They're wireless, so no tripping over things.

[Slika]

Jon,
Noticed a little too late that this is a Canon digital forum - should I try finding another forum or would it be cool with you guys if I stuck around?

[wareseeker]

Just stick around someone will help to anwser your question. I am using continous lighting too. It is cheap and easy to practice. I have one spare set if you are interested I will sell it for you cheap.

[Slika]

wareseeker,

What about all this talk of being too hot and correcting for white balance? I am really new to studio lighting - so would the continuouse lighting be better to start off with and practice and than work my way up to strobes?

[wareseeker]

It is easy to use, the bulbs are cheap, what you see is what you get and such. It is very simple to set up. I don't realize the heat under my basement. I have several bulbs with 3200K temp.

[robertwgross]

I set up a garage studio with continuous lights. There are four 500 watt quartz halogen lamps, and they really heat the place up. I can use it in the dead of winter, since my garage is otherwise unheated, but those lamps are too hot to use for the rest of the year.

Fortunately, they don't cost much (mine, with stands, were less than $12 each). For a complete lighting beginner, it is a cheap way to experiment. Just keep the smoke detector handy.

---Bob Gross---

[MediaMagic]

The have both continuous and WL's in the studio area. I use continuous mostly for shooting products/merchandise/whatever.

The advantage of continuous lighting is "what you see is what you get". The main problems are heat and shallow depth of field. If shooting an inanimate object, of course you can set to f11 and leave the shutter open however long is necessary but with people and pets, you really need the much higher output of the flash to be able to use whatever aperture you wish to create the DOF you want.

I'm not familiar with the Sony so I'm not sure what aperatures are available but you'll most likely want to stop down for good focus depth and that'll surely mean flash when living subjects are involved, unless you get you a set of airplane landing lights :-)

Good luck with it!
David

[DanteCaspian]

My wife and I are looking to buy a house and a space for a studio is a definite part of the decision of what house. While it would be nice to buy a house with one or two great rooms (in addition to a living room) for the purpose, I would be looking at a house that is $100,000 over my budget. Houses in our price range with a usable large room, are typically a "family room" in a basement, that gives a limited choice of 8' ceilings in the model of homes we are investigating.
While I understanding that 10-12' is preferred for lighting positioning, is 8' workable, or what are the real world limitations? Before I spend over 1/4 million for a home, I want to be sure it can support my addiction with limited limitations... a studio is about the top three elements of our house choice.

[PhotosGuy]

is 8' workable, or what are the real world limitations? For head & shoulders or kid shots, it works fairly well, but you will be fighting the 8' height for most anything else that's bigger.
Simple 2 Light Portrait Set-up (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=128857) how does the whole slave set up work with strobe light. SL-2 optical slave: Look at post #10:
Simple "every-day-emergency" location lighting (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=66358)


Low cost off camera flash tutorial for beginners (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=426102)

are basement studios a bad thing? (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=462558)

[DanteCaspian]

Thank you very much.

Perhaps modification to the garage to a pro look studio would be better, I had only thought of that now. Funny, the house we are looking at... I never even looked in the garage as most of the show homes had the same standard garage... 12- 14' ceilings, and larger then the basement area.