Wow this thread has soo much good information. Thank you to everyone who took the time to post their studios, I'd love to make my own one day and this is a great resource.
John your pictures are a real inspiration, great job.
A new backstage video is online.
You can view it at www.doorhof.nl under backstage.
It's video 3 from Linda.
Trying to make it a bit more professional looking.
jerryreed wrote:
EURONAIL:
What is the brand and model name please of your boom and stand? It looks like one can adjust the light from the weight end of the boom, YES?
Jerry
I don't know about Euronail's boom and stand, but the one EverStar (did I get that right?) uses look very much like this boom arm and stand from Alien Bees: http://www.alienbees.com/lb1.html http://www.alienbees.com/ls3900.html
The combination runs about $130. I'd like to have one, but I think I'd better learn to use what I've already got before I go investing more money in gadgets.
This thread is great, It took me an hour or so to get through it all, I hope it keeps going for much longer as well... Thanks for all the great posts of your setups/images.
Hi everybody,
I would like to ask for your expert advise. I have a two car garage that I will dedicate to a studio/office. The room is a square 23' long, with joists 9' off the ground. I have several specific questions, but any additional advise would be greatly appreciated.
1) If I were to leave the ceiling open, I can stick a light with a medium softbox up into the rafters, and get an additional 18 to 20 inches of head clearance. Would you recommend doing this, or should I drywall the entire ceiling? Any suggestions on how to make an open ceiling look nice?
2) How much light do I need? Not studio light, but room light. What type of light should I go with; fluorescent, incandescent, halogen?
3) I have a mixture of Alien Bees and White Lightning, and I have a wired remote. Should I hardwire a bunch of telephone jacks that I can patch into? I'll post photos of the room in a little bit.
winnjewett wrote:
Hi everybody,
I would like to ask for your expert advise. I have a two car garage that I will dedicate to a studio/office. The room is a square 23' long, with joists 9' off the ground. I have several specific questions, but any additional advise would be greatly appreciated.
1) If I were to leave the ceiling open, I can stick a light with a medium softbox up into the rafters, and get an additional 18 to 20 inches of head clearance. Would you recommend doing this, or should I drywall the entire ceiling? Any suggestions on how to make an open ceiling look nice?
2) How much light do I need? Not studio light, but room light. What type of light should I go with; fluorescent, incandescent, halogen?
3) I have a mixture of Alien Bees and White Lightning, and I have a wired remote. Should I hardwire a bunch of telephone jacks that I can patch into? I'll post photos of the room in a little bit.
I would take advantage of that extra headroom myself. An easy and inexpensive way to make the "rafters" look better is paint them flat black. You can also buy black roofers paper and staple it up on top of the rafters in the areas you would like to enclose for asthetics.
How much light do you need? Just enough to see really. Once you are shooting I would black out the room lights and rely on your modeling lights anyways. Another thing that is handy is to make a frame (PVC or other) that goes around your garage door opening, cover it in a white fabric to give you a LARGE diffused source of light to mimic a window etc. Remove the frame when not in use.
The telephone jacks sound like a nice idea, maybe run them around on the rafters to completely keep the cords off the ground to avoid any trips.
Great topic of discussion, I've been trying to figure out how to build or find one the curved wall backdrops that was mentioned WAY back. I'm currently using a 12ft seamless paper but I need to shoot some harley's and need the extra room.
By the way I agree about the quality of AlienBee's, I love mine!
Please some body can help me with? I am looking for one of the Plexiglass which has been used in the studio of one the member here. I need to know where can I get one like that? what 3D size? And how much does it cost?
It is really great to have one in order to protect the backdrop. Greatly appreciative for your help!
Let's spice it up a bit with the different kind of lighting.
1 Natural light:
2 full flash (2 umbrellas):
3 fill in flash from the ceiling:
4 Full frontal flash with a grid:
It all depends on what style or look you want to achieve.
On location I LOVE to work with natural light and reflectors and
maybe a tip of fill in flash.
Wareseeker - most hardware stores/home centers in the US have plexiglass available in different sizes and thickness. If that's not big enough check local plastics suppliers.
Ken - you need curved braces and very thin plywood to bend to the curve. It's pretty simple if you have some basic carpentry skills and a few power tools.
You can also purchase pre-made cycloramas on-line. I don't recall where but do a google search and I'm sure you'll find something.
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