We want to setup to photo motorcycles in a studio like environment.
Problem is we are just starting out and poor.
We want to go for the all white floor and background look for starters.
We have leads on a couple locations where we can put down some white linoleum and hang some white paper or the like.
But good lord the lighting costs! The overhead units and big soft boxes like the Chimeras and such are way out of our reach budget wise.
I am a retired machinist and metal fabricator. One of my partners is a retired electrician & instrumentation man.
We are good with our hands and if possible to obtain the hardware we can DIY. We just have no idea of what to look for as for the hardware or alternate lower cost unconventional parts. Lamps and elements.............
Any suggestions for a poor mans light setup and techniques to get us started? Can we flash & bounce for less?
Anything you guys see to get us by with some clean empty background images of choppers and hogs.
There is a market here. There are photographers at meets doing OK in the live outdoors but no place near here to get studio like work shots done. Several custom shops turning out choppers.
You should do yourself a favor and buy Dean Collin's DVD set. Then build yourself a bunch of 6x4 frames and get some ripstop nylon with a bit of velcro.
bacilonur wrote:
You should do yourself a favor and buy Dean Collin's DVD set. Then build yourself a bunch of 6x4 frames and get some ripstop nylon with a bit of velcro.
One way to get the uniform reflections need for vehicle photography is to use the huge light panels seen in high end commercial shoots, but If you are trying to do bike photography on the cheap don't overlook the possibilities of bouncing light and bare bulb flash, or for that matter shooting outdoors on an overcast day
If you start with a relatively small white room (or white draped area) and stick a bare bulb flash in it, the single light will provide a combination of diffuse fill off the walls and a very small source for specular highlights. Add a second source behind and hit will define the shape with rim light.
A few years ago I suggested a similar strategy to a furniture maker trying to do catalog shots with only two lights and shot these quick illustrations with a table I had handy. Furniture is similar, needing a foundation of even reflections which are then selectively nuanced by subtraction with black panels to block the reflections.
For an inexpensive durable seamless background paint the back side of seamless flooring, hand it from the wall and paint it white. Paint the part on the floor gloss white to get reflections and use a matte white for the part on the wall to reduce reflections there.
If you are in an area where you can rent equipment, that may be an option for you. Two advantages to that (besides not needing so much money up front): 1. You get to try out different stuff. 2. If you are shooting for a client, it is a billable expense.
I have not tried this, but if I were trying to recreate the large overhead softbox, I think what I would be trying is suspending a number of small strobes from the ceiling and firing them up into the ceiling. I would then stretch material below the strobes to diffuse the bounced light.
if you are just doing static shots of just the bikes, you could go the 300W halogen 'work light' or 'outdoor flood light' route with some ripstop nylon panels like bacilonur suggested in front of them to soften the light. You could probably get a really good start and long way with that for a few hundred dollars max. Just make sure you can vent the heat from the work lights & keep the panels far enough away from the lights to keep them from burning.
Remember that if you are just shooting bikes (without models or other people) you can use low powered lights with long exposures. Just put your camera on a tripod and take as much time and you need to make the correct exposure. If you had a roll of white seamless you could use it for a backdrop and then suspend it overhead. By bouncing whatever light you have (home depot flood lights would work) from the white paper suspended above the bike you would get even overhead illumination.
