Looking for help with home studio

[kenfolan]

I have a problem and am fairly frustrated, so I was hoping that someone might be able to give guidance.

I have two home studio flash heads, interfit ex150’s, not the strongest but suitable enough. I haven’t had them all that long and am still learning, but I have been able to capture some nice photo’s with them.

For example:


But I wanted to be able to photograph full length shots, maybe be able to take a group if required - because as we all know the sooner people know that you have a home studio they want portraits taken and they are expecting studio quality results. So I bought a stand and a white muslin sheet as it’s the most popular background colour choice. Now I’m aware that photographing white is hard. It acts like a giant reflector back into your lens and you can get nasty blow outs on the side of the model. But practice makes perfect and all that.

My problem though is that I can’t light enough of the sheet to make the creases disappear and I end up with bright areas, “normally” lit areas, big fold shadows and areas tinged with blue (on close inspection). Over all I would have been better off ironing an old sheet and hanging it from a door!

Now I’m on a restricted budget and have already spent far more than I can afford. And my wife is looking at me strangely wondering why I seem more frustrated now than before, not to mention that she’s waiting for those nice family portraits to be taken.

So what are my options?

Put everything away until I can afford a light meter, two more flash heads, long cone spill kills and a creaseless background? It would be cheaper to go to a professional in town!

I could continue to take head shots, but I don’t need to pull out a 3mx6m sheet and stand to take a close up of a childs head.

Or is there anyone that might have advice for me?

Surely acceptable results are achievable with a relatively plain background, a little bit of space and two flash heads?

Here is an example of what I mean, it is the unedited JPEG of a RAW file. Colour casts and doing the usual PP tweaks aside, is there something that I am missing? Or do I have to do a lot of PP work to get the look that I’m after?




*Sorry if this is in the wrong section but I’m new and just getting to know the site.

[cosmicma]

first and foremost have you tried widening your aperture ( lower f stop ) and moving the subject forward further away from the background

a lower f stop will help throw the background out of focus blurring the creases
moving the subject forward will also help to do the same

if your worried about over exposure at a wider aperture there's a couple of things that can be done about it
you could try moving the studio heads further away from the subject or if your not doing it already fire the heads through a soft box or translucent umbrellas

failing that you could use a neutral density filter

hope this helps...

[kenfolan]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I shot at F11, 100sec, at 50mm. I have found in the past that a lower F stop over exposes the subject, badly.
I’ll try moving the subject further forward, but I will have to do some serious set up maneuvering - not a huge amount of space available!

My main light is through a Softbox and my secondary light is pointing directly at the background with just a small spill kill.

Never thought of using a ND grad - might give it a go!

Here is the same photo after some quick PP’ing, but that would become tedious if I had more photographs to process.

[cosmicma]

it's usually the problem with home studio setups not having enough space
if you find it difficult to move things around ND filters are the way to go but not the graduated type
try and get your apeture below f8 even f4 if possible should give a nice soft background

i know that with ND filters the number ( x4 x8 etc ) determins the amount of stops they reduce the light by IE x2 = 1 stop x4 = 2 stops and x8 = 3 stops etc..
it should be fairly easy to work out how strong you want the ND filter to get the desired effect

[phil_b]

Hi Ken

One thing I learnt at my studio training sessions is that you have to absolutely soak the background with light if possible. Very difficult to get anything like pure white

Until I could afford some perm lights I went to Macro and bought some 500w lights on a stand (used for road works etc), on special offer for about £25 for 4 heads. Not ideal but definately helps.

Have you thought about low key? Got a nice bit of black velvet from our local market for a reasonable price. Soaks up the light a beaut and gives some wonderful pictures - not necessarily full length but good portraits. Try you models with dark clothes and jewellery and accessories - you will get some great pics

I cut up an old womans mag - red I think - gave me some great ideas for portrait shots from the adverts etc.

Hope some of this is useful

Phil

[jinky]

Phil is right - you need to get 2 stops difference between the background light and the subject light and blast the background. getting enough distance between subject and back drop is key too. I`ve used worklamps too and though many say don`t mix light sources found them OK to work around and sort in post processing. I only use Nikon flashes for my lighting and use 2 on the background and one on subject - still end up using control points on NX2 to get rid of some of the creases in my sheets - even when I iron first. Got a cheap background panel off ebay and it is a bit eaier with that.