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Archive 2011 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

TimsTravels
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p.1 #1 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

I'm about to attempt my first 'studio' photography situation and I'd like some friendly advice, tips, etc. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it please.

Backstory: My friends have a little Beer Pong business they run at local bars and they expect me (as their only photog friend) to be good at studio/portrait/modeling photography. I'm not trained in it, nor have I ever attempted it, so I can say that I'm probably not good at it. I am however, resourceful, creative, and good with manipulating the elements of a photo. Either way, they said "be at our apartment at 5" to photograph some cute girl wearing their company shirt.

What I need: I need to set up a DIY studio situation at their house. They have a white gloss painted (roughly 9x6ft) wall they use as their projector screen for their t.v. I plan to use that to bounce light or as the backdrop. I don't know what else to do for a backdrop though... and it seems pretty important. Ultimately however, the end product will probably have her photoshopped out and pasted onto a black background with event info... Just a pamphlet for advertising.

So... What can I do? I don't have a mounted flash, just popup, bringing and index card and some sticky stuff to stick the index card in front of the flash to bounce the light (prolly off the glossy wall).I'm also considering crafting a little flash diffuser from a milk jug. I may also bring a couple flat white surfaces to bounce more light

What I have: Nikon D60, kit lenses, tripod, and a random assortment of lights ranging from halogens, florescent, and a powerful sodium bulb. Just going to bring it all with me and see what I can set up that looks somewhat 'professional'. Is there a "standard" type of light for studio model photo?

Any ideas? Any DIY tips or websites you'd recommend?

Anything I do will have to be homemade, feel free to share any ideas you have. As long as you're not being rude

Sep 17, 2011 at 01:12 PM

joebee
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p.1 #2 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

TimsTravels wrote:
I'm about to attempt my first 'studio' photography situation and I'd like some friendly advice, tips, etc. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it please.

Backstory: My friends have a little Beer Pong business they run at local bars and they expect me (as their only photog friend) to be good at studio/portrait/modeling photography. I'm not trained in it, nor have I ever attempted it, so I can say that I'm probably not good at it. I am however, resourceful, creative, and good with manipulating the elements of a photo. Either way, they said "be at our apartment...Show more →
Window light with some fill would work. glossy and bounce would take a lot of work to with flash. Your pop up limits you, bounce works by having light off axis. Think diffusion with your other lights maybe a white sheet. The sodium light would be my last choice when mixing lights. I would go to Lowes/Home Depot and get some daylight balanced bulbs. Yes you can fix white balence in raw. The issue with different lights is odd color casts in the shadows if the lights are very different.

At least they don't want an action shot. I would go before the shoot and look at things like sun angle/windows and your lenses. You need to be the one setting the schedual if you need window light.

Sep 18, 2011 at 09:01 AM

RustyBug
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p.1 #3 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

You start by not p'ing off members of FM in your former posts by incessantly telling them they should run their business like "Tom's Shoes" and how magical Tom's Shoes is at marketing without spending any money because you've studied them in school ... you would likely get a much better response to asking what amounts to a professional lighting consultation for free.

What you have just described seems to be the epitome of a GWAC scenario. You've got a business entity trying to go freakin' cheap by asking someone who is just a guy with a camera to do business level work without any experience, to be used to generate business.

While I suspect you'll perceive my directness as being rude, I'll continue by offering the following advice:

1. Do NOT show up to do the shoot without having first gone to the location of the shoot and performed your test shots to develop and establish a lighting scenario that works for your desired look.

2. You can use yourself (via timer or remote) or someone else as a stand-in for testing your lighting setup without the model.

3. If you cannot get an advance testing opportunity with the location, do your best to emulate the location.

4. With only a pop up flash to work with, I would strongly recommend renting (or buying) additional lighting. Even an old manual flash that you can get find a pawn shop for el cheapo that you can put on a PC cord (does your camera even have a PC cord) will get you more light & off axis.

5. I realize that you are trying to do this on the cheap, via homemade DIY, but you are better served to get MORE light and the ability to go off AXIS than to figure out how to further divide (i.e. bounce) the miniscule amount (GN 12m @ ISO100) of light you'll be generating from your pop-up ... particularly combined with your slow kit lenses.

6. If you don't have a PC socket on your camera, you can also buy an optical slave that you could trigger from your pop up. Also, many studio lights (that you could rent) have optical slave triggers built-in.

7. If you are limited to your pop-up only, you'll want to raise the ambient level in the room as much as possible. As joebee mentioned, you'll probably want to do this with lights that have similar color balance, i.e. all halogen ... BUT, by the time you go to Lowe's and buy lights & reflectors, you could have already bought an old flash (or new off brand) that you'll use in manual mode. Then you could could have one light for bounce (ceiling, wall, foam core, etc.) and the pop-up could remain on axis.

8. I applaud the DIY effort ... but the absence of off axis and the limitation of power provided by your pop-up will only be more noticeable as you further try to soften it by diffusion or reflection (bounce).

9. Window light can be an incredibly good friend. The combination of your pop-up and the window light can offer a 1-2 punch of specular and diffuse, depending on your orientation angles and the time of day. You just have less control over the window light.

10. Go find a pro camera store that has rental gear. They will be able to provide you with both some inexpensive lighting and more importantly, they can usually give you a quick crash course in how to get some pretty good results with a minimal setup. One light and modifer of your choice (along with a little creativity) can generate results that'll blow away anything you can do with your pop-up.

11. Get yourself a good lighting reference book to study.

Again, I applaud the DIY effort / mindset ... but rather than trying to figure out how to AVOID working with the additional lighting tools ... use this opportunity to EXPLORE / practice which of the lighting tools can become a part of your arsenal. A lot of people can do a lot of AWESOME work with only a modicom of lighting at their disposal ... but that's because they embraced learning which tools were wise investments rather than being penny-wise, pound foolish by trying avoid it.

Right or wrong ... you're being asked to do as professional a job as you can possibly do ... rent & practice ... you'll do a better job and you'll learn more en route that will help you in the future.

If money's too tight (your's or theirs) to rent one light for a business endeavor ... you probably should go ask Tom's Shoes how to proceed, since you feel they are so magical about doing their marketing for "free". After all, it'll be your work that's out there for people to see ... do you want it to be promoting your ability to do free work, or your ability to do professional work

Sep 18, 2011 at 04:36 PM

Daboyle
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p.1 #4 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

thank you for speaking the truth Rusty. Sounds like the OP doesn't have a clue how much practice it takes to get "good" lighting for model photography. No, I am not saying a lot of equipment, but moreover experience.

You need to rent or use off camera lighting period. If you arent willing to do that, then give up the gig.

Sep 18, 2011 at 06:31 PM

DanBrown
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p.1 #5 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

+1 on rental gear.

If you have really good window light, you may be able to make it more useful with reflector(s).

Sep 18, 2011 at 06:59 PM

sherijohnson
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p.1 #6 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

all I am going to say is good luck, because without the experience to know what to do, you might not get the best results being it's your first time, hopefully you explained that to them. I say this just to be honest and not to be rude, I know even with experience, there is fine tuning to get things right, that is the nature of photography and lighting, the longer you do it, the better you get if you really work at it.

Sep 19, 2011 at 02:51 PM

jim1154
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p.1 #7 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

In addition to what others have said, I'd add:

-Perhaps shoot this outdoors against a plain background / wall / sky that will be easy to extract in PS, as you suggested would be done anyway. 5pm onward should provide some good light. Some sort of underpass/bridge would provide a solid gray concrete wall with directional light.

-If you shoot in the apartment, be sure to kill any incandescent/fluorescent lights to avoid mixed lighting (unless you're correcting / gelling strobes).

-I'd avoid any pop-up flash solution at all cost. For under $100, I'd grab a small photek softlighter and an old/used manual speedlight, foam board for fill.

-Only go with rental gear if you have time to figure it out beforehand.

Sep 20, 2011 at 09:14 AM

kurtis miller
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p.1 #8 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

"the end product will probably have her photoshopped out and pasted onto a black background with event info... Just a pamphlet for advertising."

Advertising is often as good as the supplied materials. Your friends with the bar attraction business obviously are trying to get by on the cheep, which is understandable for such a business. This being said, they should also understand that this project should be as beneficial to you as them. This is obviously a growing point for you, so in a way I am kind of excited for you and eager to see how you handle your project. This is your chance to experiment and learn something new.

From what I have read, you would not benefit by renting equipment because you would take up days just trying to begin to learn how to use it. Stick with natural light... not that it is easier, but using strobes takes an amount of knowledge that you just don't have right now.

Try using the shadows as your black background... you will not have to "photoshop" anything as long as you light your subject a bit brighter than the dark background.

I have seen great natural light results in front of a dark open garage (this should work with an underpass or something else of the sort) with a reflector or two to bounce natural light back onto the subject.

Good luck.

Sep 20, 2011 at 10:19 AM

Dave Jr
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p.1 #9 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

If you think you are going to be doing this type of work in the future, you should work towards getting a workable strobist setup, this can be done for around $150, give or take. All you need is a cheap third party flash, a $20 7' light stand, a set of Yongnau RX-602 triggers, a Photek 46" Softlighter II, and some 24x36" white foam core from the hobby store. Then practice lighting patterns, google portrait lighting and practice various setups and ratios, using the foam core to fill the shadow side if necessary.

For this job, it sounds like you don't have time to setup a strobist kit and learn how to use it, so I agree with others, bag the pop-up and go with window light (with foam core fill) or shoot outdoors. You will still need to know how to produce good portrait lighting and pleasing shadows on the face, and be able to recognize what good lighting looks like. Google short lighting and get familiar with how to position your subject to a window light source in order to achieve it. Pay close attention to the angle that the light needs to come from to produce the proper look. Then add fill from the foam core on the shaded side of the face if the shadows are too deep.

Hope that helps, good luck.

Sep 20, 2011 at 11:27 AM

NathanHamler
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p.1 #10 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

I vote hot lights, like some halogen work lights from home depot....fire them into a big white sheet placed between the lights and the subject...keep the sheet close to the subject, while keeping the subject far from the background...meter the light on the subject, and the background should go darker....if your lights are bright enough...shoot raw, white bal in post.... It'll be like a huge soft box... Doing this outside at night will make the bg even cleaner....

Sep 22, 2011 at 10:20 PM

RustyBug
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p.1 #11 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

kurtis miller wrote:
From what I have read, you would not benefit by renting equipment because you would take up days just trying to begin to learn how to use it.

One light with a softbox doesn't take very long to figure out how to use for some very basic, nice illumination of the model. Similar to diffuse window light, but with more punch and placement control relative to his stationary BG and/or subject ... and the extra power will let him stop down his kit lens to an optimally performing aperture.

Also, having it for the rental period gives him time to play with it to learn more and experiment. It also makes him not dependent on sunlit shooting times. He'll never learn how big a difference the light will make until he tries to use it. If not now ... when

If you're willing to try and figure out how to do a DIY project to emulate good light on the cheap ... surely you can figure out how to use a ready made 'store bought' photographic tool. If he can't figure out how to incorporate a single light with a softbox before the shoot ... do you really expect that he'll do well with DIY stuff.

I'm not saying he'll learn good lighting in that amount of time ... I'm saying that by renting the light/SB he will get better results than his DIY efforts, DESPITE his lack of lighting knowledge (and more importantly, they can usually give you a quick crash course). Besides, the additional light can be used in conjunction with the window light while the ambient is available. He could also use it with his unconventional light sources for creative purposes (i..e. splash the BG or rimlight with SV, etc.)

Rather than put so much effort in learning how to "get by" with a makeshift DIY ... he could be putting that effort into working with right tools and garnering some real growth & understanding in the process AND put out a better product in the process.

DIY works well for those who UNDERSTAND lighting, not so well for others.

Sep 23, 2011 at 07:55 AM

NathanHamler
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p.1 #12 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

Light is light be it from a window, a strobe, or a hot light.... Inverse square law still applies, and if he wants to black out a background for easier post work, he needs to get the light close to the subject, and the subject far from the background.... No matter what the light source, the technique is the same.... Good luck getting him to spend a couple hundred renting a profoto pack and heads and a big soft box, and then actually use it correctly....too many more variables.... My way is by FAR the easiest way to get the results he wants... And he said it was short notice.... Renting anything isnt a short notice thing unless you're in LA or NYC..

Trying to balance flash and ambient with unfamilar equipment is way harder than using one hot light fired into a bed sheet, while following a couple simple rules....

Sep 23, 2011 at 07:45 PM

RustyBug
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p.1 #13 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

NathanHamler wrote:
My way is by FAR the easiest way to get the results he wants

OIC ... I didn't know the ISL worked with anything besides Profoto gear, thanks for the tip.

Sep 23, 2011 at 08:57 PM

NathanHamler
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p.1 #14 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

RustyBug wrote:
OIC ... I didn't know the ISL worked with anything besides Profoto gear, thanks for the tip.

YEAH, b/c THAT'S what i'm saying....where did you get in my post?? obviously the guy is just starting out, he has a basic DSLR and a kit lens, and that's it....do you REALLY think he knows the FIRST thing about lighting?? A 285hv is too complicated for him! the most basic thing to you and me is going to be tough for him to grasp....it took me a good while to understand sync speeds, how shutter speed, aperture, and iso all work when you're using speedlights and strobes....it seemed like the gig was short notice, and he said full on that he was cool doing something DIY...then everyone goes and spouts off about "oh you need to rent stuff!" blah blah blah....that's a bunch of crap....he doesn't even need to know WHAT the ISL is, just put the light as close as possible, and the background as far away as possible....meter and shoot!

the only reason i said profoto is b/c that's mostly what rental houses have...that an elinchrom, which i consider basically the same thing...same caliber, same league...same COMPLEXITY....he wants simple...renting stuff you've never used before isn't simple...

Sep 24, 2011 at 12:13 AM

RustyBug
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p.1 #15 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

Nathan ... sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying.

In my first post, I applauded his DIY effort TWICE, and espoused window light as well, so I wasn't saying the rental was the ONLY way he could go ... just that this is a good time to consider doing so.

My first rental experience (White Lightning) was a similar short notice, unprepared, clueless, unqualified GWAC trying to do some pro quality work at someone else's request. The rental house hooked me up and clued me with a very simple setup that worked like a champ ... they were the real hero, not me. I wasn't expecting a college kid to pony up $200+ for a Profoto rental, but an AB and an SB, etc. could be had for WAY LESS.

The OP is a supposedly this incredible marketing major and has plans to be in business with his photography (historical threads), coming to an internet forum and asking how to do business the wrong way. He already thinks that Tom's Shoes spends no money on marketing, and has a history of telling other members to give away their work for free because it'll be great marketing for them ... just like Tom'sShoes does.

Now he's coming here to ask how to continue do things for free in a photography / business / marketing application. We all have combined our knowledge with cheap & DIY and I applauded him for such ... but I find this to be a misguided effort, with a misguided direction. The whole "be at our apartment at 5" thing makes most of this dialogue moot if that was truly his only opportunity to do the shoot (yeah right).

He's got an opportunity here to do something with it. A chance to "lead" his client. Sure, he might have to solicit the client for $$$, he might have to push back the shoot, he might have to scramble to learn something new ... but this is part of the real world ... he's got a chance to experience it (win, lose or draw) and learn from it ... imo, worth infinitely more than a measley rental fee. After all, he is a MARKETING major and passionate photographer (see profile).

This is not the first time he's posted just hours before heading off for his shoot that he wants our advice on. Much of what has been written here won't help him with his "at 5" endeavor due to its timing ... but for future consideration, or for his quest to learn & grow he really needs someone to help him ... a rental house can be a very good friend.

He's already done whatever he did and I'd be very surprised if it had anything to do with rental. Now, I can just see him working on an ad campaign in the future and telling some photographer to just use a bed sheet and not charge anything for it because that's what he did for his friends "Beer Pong" business and Tom's Shoes doesn't spend any money on marketing, so he doesn't want to either.

Again, my apologies for being a bit 'snippy' ... but I'm really trying to help the guy out, only he doesn't know it ... maybe someday he will. It would be interesting to hear from him as to what he ended up doing and seeing what he achieved. I'll gladly wear the "egg on my face" in exchange for him learning something of lasting value along the way.

The OP is gonna do whatever he's gonna do, and that certainly won't be anything that comes from me 'cause he thinks I'm a totally rude jerk ... which automatically means I don't know anything in his book.

Rental is NOT the only solution ... but if he's got access to a decent rental house, he'd still be wise to utilize that resource for some gear & psuedo-instruction. For those who remember, "Film is cheap" and understand what that means ... the rental house is "cheap" as well. Rentals, bedsheets, sodium vapor ... some approaches might be free, but in business, that doesn't necessarily make them the "cheapest" route to go in the end.

Again, apologies to Nathan.

Sep 24, 2011 at 05:06 AM

NathanHamler
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p.1 #16 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

No sweat man, now i def see your view..didn't mean to get defensive... :-)

Sep 24, 2011 at 11:13 AM

RustyBug
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p.1 #17 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

No problem ... we're good, "No Blood, No Foul"

Sep 24, 2011 at 12:18 PM

RoadconePhoto
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p.1 #18 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

check out the strobist blog... read the lighting 101 series...

what part of the country are you in? you might do good by finding someone local who is willing to show you the ropes with the camera. I'm not the best by any means in my area but i'm USUALLY willing to help people learn as long as they are serious and not just another GWAC...

18-55 kit lens, use the pop up flash, shoot her against the wall in portrait mode on your D60... it sounds like you're more likely to dick it up by making things overly complicated... if you dont want a hard on-axis shadow take some index cards and throw some tin foil in them and make a bounce box/card/whatever and aim it behind you at a 45* angle... it'll probably have to pop at full power... otherwise keep it simple...

as for the rental debate... I dont know of a single place to rent lighting gear within an hour of me... theres ONE real camera shop near me and its 45 minutes away and they do rent nikon gear but short of cruising down to Atlanta i'm pretty sure theres nothing near me... Aliens Bees are "cheap" and pay themselves off easily

Sep 26, 2011 at 01:40 PM

Dave Jr
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p.1 #19 · 1st attempt - Where do I start?

Tim, how did the shoot go?

Oct 04, 2011 at 08:53 AM


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