Studio Portraits

[Anouilh]

Today I met a lady who is promoting Family Studio Portraiture. The display is viewable at the entrance to Tesco in Dundrum Shopping Centre.
The high-key photos are quite attractive and there is a concession rate available this week.

It set me thinking about the equipment one might need to set up a basic studio system at home.
A backdrop and some lights might do the trick?

[Paulw]

Originally Posted by Anouilh

A backdrop and some lights might do the trick?

Yep, that's all you need. Keep it simple.

[smelltheglove]

Yeah thats all you need, myself and Paul have done a bit lately renting a room and using my equipment and dodgykeepers lights.

I bought 2 150w lights, one softbox, one shoot through umbrella, I also have paper backdrops and background support. Here is a sample of one I took in my kitchen last week.

[derokid]

deadly kitchen - "half naked rock chick!!!"... Jesus I'd hate to see the living room... god knows whats goin on in the bedrooms....

seriously though good pic

[sineadw]

You can go as simple or as complicated as you like really. In college we have a boom arm, 2x1500 and 2x1000 lights, snoots and barn doors, softboxes of all different shapes and sizes, a sun lamp, a fresnel spot and loads of other bits and bobs. Great craic altogether if you want to be a bit more dynamic with studio lights. You don't necessarily need any of them though, apart I think from a softbox and a few reflectors as STG said.

Oh and a decent external light meter.

[Paulw]

Originally Posted by sineadw

You can go as simple or as complicated as you like really.

Oh and a decent external light meter.

I've never actually used a light meter. I normally just make a judgement and then adjust.

A recent shot with just two lights and a simple white background (thanks STG, and DK)



But, you can go as simple as a single light and a background, or as complex as you want.

[sineadw]

Each to their own I guess. I'd be using a meter a lot though, especially if its a more complicated set up.

[Paulw]

Originally Posted by sineadw

Each to their own I guess. I'd be using a meter a lot though, especially if its a more complicated set up.

Probably good. It's another item I can never work out. I'm sure it's simple enough to use.

[smelltheglove]

Originally Posted by derokid

deadly kitchen - "half naked rock chick!!!"... Jesus I'd hate to see the living room... god knows whats goin on in the bedrooms....

seriously though good pic

lol, my husband is looking forward to Saturday, a girly photoshoot night in with 4 models.... I second what Paul says, I never use a lightmeter, apart fromt he shoot we did with dodgy I always go by my eye. I will of course add to my collection whenever money allows, more recently I got transmitters to go with my flashes to work on outdoor shots, there is always something else to get, I'd be interested in getting more lights for backlights and gel colours eventually also but one thing at a time and that.

[kensutz]

I use a meter when doing studio work. It's a great tool for dealing with multiple lights.

[sineadw]

Originally Posted by kensutz

I use a meter when doing studio work. It's a great tool for dealing with multiple lights.

And very easy to use Paul - just point and shoot

[sineadw]

Meters also are invaluable when blowing out the backdrop - a lesson I learned (with Thonda) the hard way a while back. I now meter 9 spots across the backdrop and make sure I'm at least 2 stops over the key light on all, and checking for overspill. Otherwise it can take a bloody age in PP.

[ThOnda]

I've got into the situation, that I had to really carefully measure the light to get the correct balance among background, main, fill and hair light. But it is worth it. Takes only few seconds...
There is a polystyrene head in the studio, so I put it on a stand and check and adjust the lights. I've found also need for portable shades to block individual lights - the barn doors were not enough.
Well, high key is fun, you need lots of light or tripod and patient model

[CabanSail]

I can feel a Studio Meet coming on ......

[oshead]

Over the summer I setup a seamless white system in my home.

The backdrop is a 13' x 7' roll of lino painted matt white on the back. On the floor is a 4' x 4' sheet of perspex I picked up in B&Q. The underside is painted white on that too. The strobes to the left and right are Canon 580EX II and 430EX flashes. They are triggered using Elinchrom Skyports. I have since got a pair of Elinchrom Bx500 Ri's. The frame for the back drop is from an old Gazebo I had. Here's a quick shot of the basic setup.



Here are some images all taken with Canon Speedlites.
This is a before and after PP comparison. The lights were not powerful enough to give me a completely 255 white without upping the ISO. It takes literally 1 minute to blow the highlights out using a 10% dodge brush in Photoshop.



Ideally you'd want to be using a light meter for all off camera flash. It makes your job so much easier when you are trying to get proper seperation of background to subject. For this you need at least 1.5 to 2 stops of light. This is'nt easy to achieve over a smaller distance. If not done correctly, the light from the bg will wrap around the subject. That's fine if it's the look you're after. But for me here, it wasn't, so I set the bg spill to about 2 stops lower by the time it gets to the back of the subject.

You can do this without a meter if you don't have one. Setup the lights to fill the bg. You don't need to blow the bg out. Just fill the white matt surface with nice bright white. Chimping the back of the camera should show all the data in the top 20% of the histogram. When happy with the coverage of light, take a photo of your hand where the back of the subjects head should be while facing the bg about 7-9 feet away. Your hand will be exposed by aprox 2 stops lower. If not, adjust flash power and subject distance accordingly.

This is not all together the most accurate method for measuring the light, but good enough to get you in the ball park without a handheld meter. Once there, If you need to, write the settings down. Setting up in future with the same gear will be a breeze.



The perspex really does a great job of visually grounding the subject and keeping her from straying from the general area. I can turn the perspex over to give me a matt finish on the ground rather than reflections.







The biggest problem I had with this setup was the power of the flashes. To get enough light from the Speedlites with the diffusers on, I had to shoot at ISO 400 which is not ideal. So I've recently upgraded to a couple of 500w/s BxRi's from Elinchrom though, havn't had much of a chance to use them. I will over the next while I hope.