A Detailed Look At Setting Up A Home Photography Studio
by Luke Walker
You might be interested in setting up a home photography studio. Let's look at some useful tips on how to go about this.
First of all, it is recommended to use a fairly small sized room with neutral white walls. White walls guarantee that the light remains uncoloured, so that your models don't get coloured by the light (imagine if your walls were shocking pink for example...).
You may decide to use a soft box, an umbrella, or both tools in the room. A soft box is basically a small box that fits to the top of the flash, the small flash tube shoots out light, which is reflected off the insides of the walls of the soft box and then passes through a translucent material that goes over the front of the soft box, refracting the light in all directions.
An umbrella is very similar to a soft box, the only difference being that some of the light from the flash can pass through it, and the remaining light will reflect off it. You can use it both ways to get different lighting effects. When you put the umbrella onto your flash head, you will have something known as a spill kill. It is a round piece of metal which goes around the end of the flash. It is called a spill kill because it prevents light from spilling out past the umbrella. This stops light from shining onto the walls and the ceilings, which can totally mess up your photography efforts. The whole purpose of a home studio is for you to be in control of the light.
Let's have a quick look at the differences between the light coming from the soft box and the light coming from the umbrella. Flash heads have things called modelling lights, which are simply tungsten bulbs that are on all the time. As you adjust the output the light level goes up and down. It enables you to see what the light is going to do at different outputs. As you change the exposure you can see how the shadows change around the person or object you are shooting.
If you are using a flash, it will be necessary to use a flash meter. There are trial and error ways of doing it but they are not precise and it takes a long time to explain. Firstly, you start by adjusting the ISO speed on your flash meter to match the ISO speed on your camera. Set your flash sync speed to be fast enough. To do that you have to know what the sync speed of your camera is. Don't point the invercone directly towards the flash. It is best if you point it towards the position of the camera. If you've decided to buy a home studio kit, it will probably include 200 or 400 watt second lamps. Using the flash meter you can measure the aperture. F8 is usually a good aperture to use.
If you're working with an older set of lights, the voltage may be different to newer electronic devices and can ruin your camera, so it is best that you don't connect your camera directly to an older set of lights. Instead you can trigger photoelectric cell triggers on your lights using your pop up flash on the top of your camera. So that it doesn't interfere with the lighting of the photo, you can change the flash on your camera to be a very small fraction (say around 2%) of its regular output.
By working with an umbrella instead of a soft box, you can allow some light to escape through the umbrella, reflect off the walls and ceiling of the studio and make a softer overall lighting effect, instead of having virtually all of the light reflect back onto the model or subject we are shooting (the result of using a soft box). The shadows on the person's face will not be as strong when using an umbrella as they would if you use a soft box.
If you turn the light around to shine directly at the subject, with the umbrella between so that the light goes through the umbrella, the room will be a great deal brighter than before. You'll need to reset the exposure before taking the shot. Doing it this way will still create softer lighting than if you just use the soft box, but the lighting will still be harder than letting the light bounce out of the umbrella (with the flash facing away from the person you are shooting).
A common way of setting up your lighting is 'flat light', which will remove textures and shadows by using two, three or even four flashes. Shadows on a person's face will make their wrinkles and imperfections stand out more. Having one light shining towards the subject from one location and another light from another location will help to soften up the shadows. You might decide to let some of the light shine off one of the side walls. If you watch out for these small details you will be able to spot some very interesting results.
To set up the exposure with multiple lights, you'll need to do one light at a time to guarantee that the light is even from both light sources. In this situation, you should point the invercone at the light. If one is roughly F8 and the other is about F8.5 it will be good enough, as the difference won't have much of an effect. If your lights are on sliders, then by simply moving them forward or backward by a few centimetres will enable you to make tiny adjustments.
If you are planning to create subtle shadows, you can use a set up known as Key And Fill, where you basically have one light that is the key light (main light), which will create some shadows on the subject's face. You can then use the additional light to soften those shadows. You should start by setting up the key light before the additional light. This light should be almost in line with the point from where you position your camera. Next, set up the fill light to soften up those shadows. You should play around with the position of the fill light, but it will most likely be pointing toward the model roughly at a right angle to the direction of the camera. If the key light is roughly F16 for example, and your fill light is around F8, this should be good.
The next thing to check is the overall exposure. Turn both the key light and the fill light on, make sure you aren't standing in your own light, then check the exposure at the point where the subject is positioned using your flash meter. You can then set this on your camera.
By making use of a longer lens and standing a bit further back, you can ensure that no unwanted light enters the camera directly from the lights.
By learning how to meter it and spending time setting it up, you know that light will stay constant for a few hours, unlike natural light from a window which is constantly changing with the direction and intensity of the sun.
Before you consider building your own <a href="http://lukewalkerdcrg.hubpages.com/hub/A-Guide-On-Setting-Up-Your-Own-Home-Photography-Studio">home photography studio</a> make sure you have a look at our main site and related blogs and build your skill set with our detailed, thoughtfully written <a href="http://lukewalkerdcrguru.blog.com/2013/04/21/getting-your-own-home-photography-studio-set-up/">posts and pages</a> for the photography hobbyist
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New Unique Article!
Title: A Detailed Look At Setting Up A Home Photography Studio
Author: Luke Walker
Email: xenflex@gmail.com
Keywords: home photography studio,photography studio,studio lighting,photography tips,photography ideas,photography,arts and entertainment,hobbies
Word Count: 1208
Category: Hobbies
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