setups and shots with home studio setup Thread

DannoBoy said:
So these are pretty good then Mark, I was looking to get the 900w kit at some point. Your happy with the kit ?
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Admittedly, they're not the best but I have found that for what I'm doing at the moment (family portraits) they are more than adequate for the job. The only thing that lets them down is the the fact that your only control over the strobe power is the knob on the top. All I do is set it half way, take a test shot using the iso, f stop and shutter speed 1/125 that I want to use and then adjust the power up or down. Although saying that, I've just bought a meter so hoping it might be a bit easier.
I really like them and most of the portraits I've posted on here for critique have been done using this system.
 
antihero said:
Some great images in here :)

We are decorating at the minute, so a bare plaster wall creates quite a good background! Wife attended a "Come Dine With Me" evening with a few other friends, the theme of the Evening being "Bad Taste" and everyone had to stay in character for the evening :) and managed to grab a shot as they were leaving

anyway....was rushing around so didn't get setup shots, but its a softboxed Nikon SB24 flash camera left as key light and softboxed interfit flash camera right as fill....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60480902@N04/8036283257/
IMGP1215.jpg by dobinio, on Flickr
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Love the lighting here. Bizarrely I searched Flickr for info on the Tamron 17-50 for another thread and came across this image! :)
 
Hi Guys, I do not under stand anything about lighting pics for portraites i never really shot people before in a studio enviroment etc...

I have purchased one of them sheets of ebay and stands so i have a white/black back drop..

and the stands..

i have 3 remote flashes but no soft box's or any sort of umbrellas etc?

i took a few shots yesterday with flash on the cam infront and a flash left and a flast right like i would a car to spread the light well the results where awfull lol and the background had loads of creases in...

if i fire a flash directly onto the white back ground all the creases go but the subject is far to bright then as well?

do i need soft box's?

if i put the camera flash behind the white cotton sheet would that make the creases go away etc?

its driving me mad im going to have a proper go later in the garage
 
Simmy said:
Hi Guys, I do not under stand anything about lighting pics for portraites i never really shot people before in a studio enviroment etc...

I have purchased one of them sheets of ebay and stands so i have a white/black back drop..

and the stands..

i have 3 remote flashes but no soft box's or any sort of umbrellas etc?

i took a few shots yesterday with flash on the cam infront and a flash left and a flast right like i would a car to spread the light well the results where awfull lol and the background had loads of creases in...

if i fire a flash directly onto the white back ground all the creases go but the subject is far to bright then as well?

do i need soft box's?

if i put the camera flash behind the white cotton sheet would that make the creases go away etc?

its driving me mad im going to have a proper go later in the garage
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Just experiment
 
You need to separate the lights. Flash on the background should not spill onto the subject so the lights pretty much should be behind the subject pointing at the background. You can use one or tow for that.

You really need something to soften the light when taking a portrait though and the front light could have a cheap shoot through brolly attached located at roughly 45 degrees to the subject.

Check out you tube for flash portraits - loads of help on there.

Regards the subject being too bright, if you find that, close down the aperture (say from f8 to f11 or whatever number makes the exposure look good).

It really helps if you can to understand the basics before you start "having a go".

Cheers
Jim
 
basically what that says to me is get rid of cotton and get paper on a roll? lol
 
Gathered some courage to post these. Shot in a house kitchen with some black gortex material draped over the sink. Lencarta 200w kit with an octabox to camera left and a shoot through umbrella to camera right.

DSC_9598.jpg


DSC_9620.jpg


DSC_9662.jpg
 
see thats all i wanna do like above? how is the back drop all black with hardly any creases etc even with the dogs lying on it etc?
 
All i did whether its wrong or right was to take underexpose the background without the dogs in place so that it stayed as black as possible. The set up my lights for the pups. In photoshot i just reduced the blacks very very slightly and all done. The gortex has a white bottlom side which is rubbery and gripps the tiled floor so doesnt crease quite as much. I need a material like this as its waterproof incase the pups/dogs have accidents.
 
Nice shots Mark

With studio lights they are pretty powerful. If you set the camera to say 1/125 and f8 at ISO 100 that should pretty much remove any ambient light in the scene.

Move your lights and set the power so that f8 is a good exposure and done - bit more to it but also don't fire the lights straight towards the subject and background. Turn the light so that the edge of the flash light/softbox/brolly is the bit that is lighting your subject.

Provides a nice soft light and as no light is being fired towards the backdrop it will appear darker. Best to use a light modifier with an edge like a softbox for that so the light has direction. You can use a flag to stop light falling where you don't want it.
 
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Cheers Guys top advice :) will have ago and report back.. i dont have any soft box's etc yet... i guess i could tape like a bit of card or something to the side of the flash to stop the light going in that direction?
 
Simmy said:
Cheers Guys top advice :) will have ago and report back.. i dont have any soft box's etc yet... i guess i could tape like a bit of card or something to the side of the flash to stop the light going in that direction?
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Yes that's a flag but you should use something to soften the light (make it larger). Hard light like that can work well in specific circumstances - You can bounce the light to soften it but that is likely to gives quite a big spread of light.

You can buy a brolly very cheaply
 
well i ditched the white and went to use the black back drop....

i didnt have much room in the garage to shoot head on so i went for a side view..

i just set up one flash gun and pointed it from the side of the back drop right on the edge and tried not to get any light on the backdrop it was shot at F11 i think.

no soft box or anything but i guess it kinda worked?

didnt have any people to shoot so i just grabbed my cricket bag as it was largest object...

studiotestshot.jpg
 
I'm using a calibrated monitor and the background is not black on my monitor. I can see the black curtain (material) you used quite clearly. You need to also get the light fairly close to the subject and the subject further away from the background (zooming that flash should restrict how much it lights too)
 
Cheers just got to work and i can also see the material! couldnt see it at home doh! ill have to sort my mointor out...

yeah i didnt really have enough room to do anything as the garage is not very big :(

think the 1st step is to buy a soft box for my flash gun any recomendations?
 
Lastolite Ezybox
 
Heres my home studio which is in my kitchen, the backdrop is 2.3 metres wide to give you an idea of space, it's a tight fit but works to a degree

home.jpg
 
looks good :)
 
Bump for this very useful thread.

Just received my 2x Lencarta kit and Highlite so hoping to add to this thread soon.

Keep up the good work guy's.

Mark
 
I've just purchased another 2 lights. Cant wait to get them and start adding some lighting to my shots! :D
 
Mank said:
I've just purchased another 2 lights. Cant wait to get them and start adding some lighting to my shots! :D
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What did you go for?
 
Mank said:
Another Elite Pro300 which will be used as my other separation light and just a Lencarta smart flash to use for a bit of fill if I need it for my bigger groups :)
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(y)
 
My first go with my new softboxes, just getting to grips with these for now before I try and take things any further. Backdrop was a basic white cloth backdrop but after looking through this thread im considering getting something more solid as i'm finding that on full body shots the cloth is rather distracting even when getting the subject as far away as possible and throwing the background out of focus.

This is my son, jacob, proudly showing his new teeth off!

a7ij3.jpg


550d & 50mm @f/2
 
The light just looks a bit high - Try and make sure you get a catchlight in both eyes. you can see the lify in his left eye but his right is dead (no light in it)
 
Ah yeah I see what you mean! Thanks for your feedback, I think they were both on stands as low as they can go but I may be wrong as I spent a good hour playing around! Cheers!
 
lukechad said:
Ah yeah I see what you mean! Thanks for your feedback, I think they were both on stands as low as they can go but I may be wrong as I spent a good hour playing around! Cheers!
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Where were they positioned?
 
Great setup shot! I have the lights and modifiers - just need to buy the floor and backdrops :) Food for thought there mate thanks for sharing :)
 
Nice set up Rob, really using that space well.

Does that rear gridded light add a massive amount to the image when your not shooting against black? I.e less need for seperation from background.
 
Mank said:
So heres the set up shot from todays shoot:


Set Up Minnie by rob_mank, on Flickr

And heres the an image from the set up (the set up shot was taken later in the shoot after the cake smash)


Minnie - CAKE SMASH! by rob_mank, on Flickr

Need to have a play and a tweak still :)
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Beautiful Shots Mank. If you didn't show the setup the presumption would be that you had your own studio mate. Goes to show what you can do with a bit of effort and clever thinking.
 
EOS_JD said:
Great setup shot! I have the lights and modifiers - just need to buy the floor and backdrops :) Food for thought there mate thanks for sharing :)
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Cheers buddy!

The pink backdrop I have on the cake smash is the cheapest I have. It was a pot of sample paint for 99p mixed with some white emulsion we had laying around of a piece of 4'x4' MDF board.

And the floor was £5. So about £15/20 set up their (excluding over £800's of lights and modifiers!! :LOL: )

dan_yorkshire said:
Nice set up Rob, really using that space well.

Does that rear gridded light add a massive amount to the image when your not shooting against black? I.e less need for seperation from background.
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Cheers Dan.

Doesn't really add separation like I thought it might have but it does add in a touch of light which I think helps the image pop a little. :)

Marcus Geezer said:
Beautiful Shots Mank. If you didn't show the setup the presumption would be that you had your own studio mate. Goes to show what you can do with a bit of effort and clever thinking.
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Thank you very much Marcus. I wish I had a little more space but I make do with what I have. :)
 
DannyDMR said:
Heres my home studio which is in my kitchen, the backdrop is 2.3 metres wide to give you an idea of space, it's a tight fit but works to a degree

home.jpg
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Nice little setup there. Gonna be moving into my first home with the girlfriend soon and the room I'm gonna be using for the studio is 2.4m x 3.2m so looks like it's going to be a tight fit lol.
 
Rob (Mank) very nice results. Did you do the mosaic in PS?

I have been reading this thread and all I can say it has been such a wonderful thread for info and inspiration. Here are a few from my humble set up consisting of a 6x7 Highlite, 2 Lencarta smart flash 200's and a single 580EXII speedlite. Sorry, I didn't get any set up images as time was short but I will do next time...

Girlfriend and our son..

8241664262_f9a7a33927_b.jpg


Joshua wanted to shoot in other ways..lol

8241664484_e854eb3952_b.jpg


Feedback welcomed?

Mark
 
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