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I was one of the instructors at a photo workshop, and I found out that the session before mine would be demonstrating some ultra-high end kit. On demo was a full Broncolour strobe set and a Phase One digital back. All told, it was about $125,000 worth of studio kit being demo'd, shooting a lovely model in a beautiful (and pricey) dress.....
So when putting together my session, I thought I'd show what you can do for less than that cost.
As attendees came over from the previous session to mine, I pulled out a few elinchrom's, a sun bounce reflector and my D800, a studio backdrop and some reflector gear, had the model change into a local designer's dress and made a photo.
Everyone thought my point was what could be done for 10 per cent of what we'd just seen earlier.
But I wasn't done....
Then when everyone was not-entirely impressed, but playing along nicely, I decided to show what could be done for 0.1% of that cost...
I moved out my studio lights, put down my D800 , and got rid of the studio backdrop and sun bounce reflector
In their place I used a $12 clamp light from Walmart with a regular 100w bulb; my second light (providing rim and background light) was a cheap 2nd hand table lamp I bought from a local consignment store for $5.99 (the lampshade provides diffusion and a nice warm tone. Replacing my studio backdrop was a $9 shower curtain I got from Target on sale, and instead of the sun bounce reflector, I used the white side of an empty XL pizza box.
And I sent my model back into the change room to put on something we'd pre-arranged. She came back out wrapped in a table-runner I'd bought for $2 from the same consignment store as the lamp
I think everyone thought I was nuts.
I showed everyone the stuff - and this is the stuff I used to use back in the day when I first started out doing work on the road - whatever I could get my hands on - totally improvised.
But could you make even a passable photo with this collection of near-garbage?
Shooting tethered, I then turned around and made this image.
Total cost of the set:
Main Light - $12
Background & Rim light $5.99
Shower Curtan: $9
Wardrobe (table runner): $2
Reflector: Free (with last night's dinner)
Great experiment / demonstration! I love the table runner. That's something I'll have to keep in mind.
A question: Did you have to compromise on the ISO because of using the lights? Or was it a matter of getting the lights close? Among other reasons I have come to love strobes: 1) lots of light (too much sometimes) so that I can stick to base ISO and 2) and I can shoot fast, avoiding most motion blur. I'm just wondering what, if any, compromises you ended up with do to this choice of lighting.
ucphotog wrote:
Great experiment / demonstration! I love the table runner. That's something I'll have to keep in mind.
A question: Did you have to compromise on the ISO because of using the lights? Or was it a matter of getting the lights close? Among other reasons I have come to love strobes: 1) lots of light (too much sometimes) so that I can stick to base ISO and 2) and I can shoot fast, avoiding most motion blur. I'm just wondering what, if any, compromises you ended up with do to this choice of lighting.
Honestly, with any half decent dSLR made in the past 3-4 years, I don't think there's much 'compromise' involve din going to ISO800 (or ISO 3200 on some of the new cameras).
Sticking to base ISO (iso35) Is something I do on medium format. Moving to 35mm, I think obsessing about noise is only really useful to landscape photographers, because they have that luxury. For everyone else, story trumps the fine grain low-level, non intrusive noise we may perceive in shots.
I mean, look at that shot above... is there noise? Yes. Is that even a bad thing, or does the modern noise character actually look fairly film-like - making the image at worst 'different', and at best, 'better' than zero-noise images? Some people steadfastly argue for the organic nature of film grain. I'm not one of them, but I do, on occasion, prefer noise in my images (sacrilegious, i know!).
I'm not taking my strobes back either. But the skill of spoofing a professionally lit shot from $35 and items at hand is invaluable when you are out without strobes and you still have 3 minutes to nick a shot of someone a) famous, b) gorgeous, c) awesome, d)all three...
I've become a rather big fan of your work, though I've not been posting comments.
Thanks for the background/setup and taking us through this journey. I completely agree with "the message" and am always happy to see it presented in detail.
And for folks like me -- who aren't that good -- better gear helps cover up at least some of our sins.
Had a student take some behind the scenes shots of the presentation - and here you see my main light (the student's clamp light), my rim light (and background light - the $5.99 table lamp), the pizza box reflector and the cheapy shower curtain that is my background.
That looks really good to me. I like your low expense because it's so much better than paying for all that grossly overpriced equipment anyway right? Good job. I am impressed.
The people who attended your session should really thank you. So should the rest of the people here. Sharing how to do great work on a budget is a great thing. Thanks for sharing it all.
