Adding to portable studio set up

lartamax

lartamax

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900
Name
John
Edit My Images
Yes
I have almost completed the diploma in professional photography and am fortunate in that I am getting more and more regular work mainly family portraits, graduations, kids etc.
To start with I purchased a roll of arctic white paper, stand, set of Elinchrome D lites and also have a Canon 580 flash. Plus Garys dvd The Portrait Masterclass.
I am renting a room in a community center on an as needed basis and have been considering improving my set up.
Option 1 in the Lastolite background and train which is very portable but expensive and would really use up 2 of my lights so I would need another full set which is a major expense on top of the extra lights.
Option 2 is stick with the paper roll which is less portable and cumbersome but I could get away with just buying another set of lights to give a full high key set up and reduce the amount of PP I have to do at the moment due to using 2 lights on the background and only 1 on the subject leaving a very uneven spread of light.
Anyone got any preferences for either option and able to give a few pros and cons or make other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

John.
 
More light will always give you more option later down the line, so if I was in your shoes, I'd defo go for more lights. Setting up paper roll might take a little more effort, but compare that to reduced editing time on each image!
 
I like HiLites, but the biggest advantage of them is the much smaller amount of space they take up. Often crucial shooting in peoples' homes.

But if you've got the room, both width and depth, a conventional background gives more options.
 
Option 3, move away from white backgrounds and be different to the other guys in your area? You could still get a white background but get some gels to help make things a bit different?
 
Move away from white backgrounds what would the public think lol. Yes something different would be nice but I am still on a big learning curve and would like to perfect standard white background high key , beauty dish etc before starting on gels.
 
The family I photographed yesterday loved the idea of not having white and loved a more moody light too. White bg and high key is one of the toughest setups out there, I dare you to stand out from the crowd....
 
Well going to an off camera flash seminar at Calumet on thursday so might just come home with a set of gels.

John
 
lartamax said:
Well going to an off camera flash seminar at Calumet on thursday so might just come home with a set of gels.

John
Click to expand...

Cool, it's always good to keep an open mind :)
 
Chromakey and drop some wildebeest sweeping majestically across the Serengeti in the background. Handy if you're in Torquay.
 
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