On this site I will continue to post regarding everything non-photography related

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On the outside of the package it couldn’t be seen, more than just a wrinkle on the middle, but when I opened it it was clear that it had gotten pushed quite a bit on the middle of the roll, so much that the core cardboard center has probably cracked too, which means there is a very visible wrinkle pattern, about 30 cm wide, for the entire lenght of the roll. Crap. I have just now let the supplier know about it, and I’ll see how it works out, if I have to deliver it back to the service point, or if they will just send a new one…

So, now I’ll probably rig a background using a white sheet or something meanwhile, until I get a proper paper background…

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Backgrounds

Most people consider a photo studio to be a place where there is at least one background. I search around on the web for info about which background to get, and thought about which size, and decided to go for the basic one, which is white. But, instead of going to the cheapest possible options which would be to just get a white sheet and nail it to the wall I decided to get a stand, and a big roll of white paper. The roll is nearly 3 meters wide, and 11 meter longs, which means you can turn almost the entire wall and floor white. This is what I was looking for, since I want to be able to take other photos than just people sitting in front of a plain background. With such a big background you can put many people in the photo, and they don’t have to be standing up either.

I first thought about getting a grey background, but everyone said; nope, get a white one, you can use the strength and position of the lights to turn that background white, grey or even black, so stick with the white one for starters… A big background like the one I got costs about 90 euro, and is made of paper, so it needs to be replaced if you’re going to walk on it with muddy shoes…

Next thing you need is;

Flash stands and peripherals

Since you probably don’t have 2 or 3 people that like to hang around and just hold the flashes in the same position it’s probably a good idea to get some flash stands. The purpose of the stand is two-fold. You put the flash on top of it, and then connect the light modifiers either to the stand or the flash itself (in my case the stand). But wait, what is a light modifier?

Well, imagine that you have a flash-light. It makes a straight forward beam. If you put a very thin rice-piece of paper in front of the flash light the light will be a bit weaker, but also very much wider and softer. Imagine if you instead of the paper put a thick sheet of wood with just a little hole in it. It would make a tiny focused spot of light. If you drilled 4-5 holes, it would make a spotty pattern. These are some simple examples of what light modifiers do. All of them takes away a little or a lot of the strength of the light which came out from the flash, but it also changes the light in a way that you hopefully wished for.

The most common modifiers to attach to your flash is;

• Umbrella. This is just what it sounds like. An umbrella. Can be either white transparent or solid reflecting colour (silver or gold usually). The umbrella takes the light and makes it very big and spread out. It takes the small light source (your flash) and pours it out over a bigger area. You can either bounce the light from the flash into the umbrella and back towards the object you’re photographing, our you can shoot though the umbrella for a bit more control of where the light goes.
• Soft box. Also what it sounds like A square box, comes in different sizes, usually quite big. This gives you a bit more control than an umbrella over where you get your light. Makes a very smooth soft pleasing light.
• Snoot. This makes the light from your flash very narrow and focused as a single spot. Perfect for adding just a touch of light on the top of someone’s head if you want to light up their hair just a bit.
• Barn door. This has adjustable flaps in front of the flash. You can choose to block the light from going a certain direction, for instance if you want to light a part of a persons face and want a very sharp line of where the light ends…

There are tons of more light modifiers, and I am still reading about, and learning what they are and how they work… The ones I’m getting first are umbrellas. They are the most versatile peripheral for a studio shoot, since you can use them both in a bit of a focused way, as well as very wide spread. They’re also quite cheap, which matters

Check out this site again for more info on how I’m setting up my studio (my last order is probably showing up at our house in the middle of next week!)

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My first idea was to buy a simple studio kit, which consists of 2 flashes of 110ws strength with stands and an umbrella each. This costs about 300 Euro in it’s simplest form. WS (watt-seconds) is the unit which studio lights is measured in. Unlike guide numbers for a flash, which tells you how far you flash reaches at a given ISO and lens size, watt seconds tells how much power is stored in the studio flash and will then be translated into a burst of light. A 110ws is probably a bit weaker than most ordinary flashes you’d put in your camera hot shoe (except the built in flash, which is very weak), but the benefit of a studio flash is how well it can be controlled, and how it can be modified. You can fit different things to it, such as an umbrella or a soft box, or a snoot. There are standard sizes, so you have plenty to chose from. How strong the flash is doesn’t change much in how you can use it, but it does put a limit to how big of a scene you can light. A 110ws probably wouldn’t be enough for anything more than face and/or upper body photography of one person. If you go up to 300-400 ws then you’d be able to light full body photos of several people at once…

But, I said my first idea was a studio kit. I then discovered that I could use my two ordinary flashes as a light setup instead. I have a Dörr DAF42, which is a simple, but modern flash, and a Pentax FTZ-330, which is a bunch of years old, but still fires well. These are typical flashes that most people would have for their camera. What makes the big difference is getting them off the hot shoe of your camera, since keeping them just on top of your camera doesn’t let you get interesting shadows. You can either make a flat but soft lit photo if you add a diffuser, or a very strong harsh light if you use the flash bare. There are several ways of getting the flash off the camera, and I chose a Cactus V4 radio transmitter & receiver kit, a cheap solution, costing about 50 euro. This allows you to move the flash away from your camera, many meters away, and it doesn’t have to be in the line of sight. One flash is controlled by the Cactus V4 and the other flash has a slave sensor, which means it “looks” for another flash firing, and fires immediately when it sees the flash from the first one. In essence this makes both flashes fire at once (much faster than the camera opens and closes the shutter). So, one flash can be above and on an angle to the person you’re shooting, while the other is behind the person, lighting up the background. This makes for a simple and interesting setup to play with if you already have a camera flash or two to play with.

In my next post I will write a bit more about what other things I’m going to be trying to set up at home to make a little home photo studio, and how I plan to use the studio when it’s done. Stay tuned…

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…oh, and by the way, I really like my new Tamron 70-200 2.8, it’s really superb, and ever so sharp. That and my 50mm 1.4 is what will always be in my photobag…

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