DIY Studio Lighting

Mnemosyne

I'm curious. WHat would be an affordable (IE: College pay grade) way to cheat at lighting for portraiture and art photography?

I recently did the cover shoot for a publication at my school paper, and it inspired me. I want to get some more lights, maybe some reflectors, and soft boxes, but I don't exactly have the money to buy a real lighting kit. So I wanted to do it a cheap DIY way, until I can save up for a real lighting system.

Anybody have some methods that worked for them? Some people have told me they used those work flood lights from Lowes.

pathfinder

Halogen Work lites will make iight, but they are very hot, and if you are not careful can be a fire hazard as well.

Speedlites, battery powered strobes are inexpensive powerhouses of light. You can get all kinds of modifiers for them - diffusers, reflectors, softboxes, etc. Tack up a large white sheet, put a strobe behind it and you can have a large ring flash too. Bounce one off a white wall for a nice windowlight. Get out your Strobist's student kit, and give it a whirl

Studio strobes with softboxes take up a lot of room that most college student don't have enough of to begin with. Strobe can be bought for about ~$200 and up each. Softboxes will run $50 and up depending on size.

My favorite model with a speedlite bounced off a Mini Micro California Sunbounce reflector

ziggy53

Mnemosyne wrote:

... I don't exactly have the money to buy a real lighting kit. So I wanted to do it a cheap DIY way, until I can save up for a real lighting system.

Anybody have some methods that worked for them? Some people have told me they used those work flood lights from Lowes.

The very best way to learn is to intern for a working photographer. You will get to assist and then, if you earn the trust of the photographer, you may even get to shoot some sittings. Many photographers don't mind the help as long as you really provide help.

Daylight is also a very good and inexpensive source of illumination. The problem, of course, is controlling the light, but controlling light is a major part of what photography is all about. Proper sites and some simple reflectors and diffusors and flags can provide the lighting control you need and if you can get some volunteers to help hold stuff you can avoid stands and clamps, etc..

Here's an illustration that shows how a true sunlit studio was used in the dawn of portrait photography:

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/2688/A173_1_037.jpg

Outdoor sites are also available which provide similar light, but you have to look for them.*

If you can gain access to one fairly powerful light, you can use it to provide multiple sources of illumination:

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Studio-lighting-on-a-budget

(*Take a look at some of Yuri's work, done primarily outdoors. Start with this thread: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=71133)

ziggy53

Mnemosyne wrote:

... Some people have told me they used those work flood lights from Lowes.

Here is a quote from my response in another thread,

"You can use "hot lights", tungston-halogen work pretty well and even regular tungsten will do in a pinch. They do get hot, dangerously hot sometimes, and that makes them less than desirable for studio use. They also tend to make the pupils small in the subjects. That may be fine for subjects with a dark colored iris, but a light colored iris can look "odd" in a portrait.

Another potential problem with tungston based bulbs is color temperature. while it's easy to correct for the color temperature using an appropriate white balance (WB), it does tend to reduce the dynamic range (DR) of the imager. The reason for this is because most imagers are balanced for daylight. That means a tungsten WB will have less Red headroom and less Blue shadow detail than a daylight balanced image of the same intensities and hues. All this means is that your control of lighting has to be more precise and you tend to use less contrasty lighting using tungsten based lamps. This might rule out some lighting techmiques which use contrasty lighting or work close to the extremes in hues."

I hope you can see that I don't use or recommend halogen lights for a few reasons.

I followed that post with a recommendation to use electronic flash. If you are serious about controlled lighting and photography, flash is the best way to go IMO. Do you have any access to flash lighting?

Mnemosyne

Depends.

I have a 430, and the vivitar from the strobist. But I'm looking to get more creative with the lighting.

ziggy53

Mnemosyne wrote:

Depends.

I have a 430, and the vivitar from the strobist. But I'm looking to get more creative with the lighting.

Actually, there is a fair amount you can do with even just 2 lights.

Do you have any examples of the work you would like to do? (Links to images would be fine.)

Mnemosyne

Not off the top of my head. I just recall many of the photos I've seen require at least 2 lights for key (left and right sides) and a fill.

Mostly it's because of the way I'm imagining the light set up, but maybe I'm getting too creative.

The other thing is my 430 can only be triggered (as of now) by my ST-E2 infrared trigger, while my Vivitar has a wireless trigger (FM I think?). I'm thinking of ways to streamline the triggering process without breaking my wallet.

ziggy53

Mnemosyne wrote:

Not off the top of my head. I just recall many of the photos I've seen require at least 2 lights for key (left and right sides) and a fill.

Mostly it's because of the way I'm imagining the light set up, but maybe I'm getting too creative.

The other thing is my 430 can only be triggered (as of now) by my ST-E2 infrared trigger, while my Vivitar has a wireless trigger (FM I think?). I'm thinking of ways to streamline the triggering process without breaking my wallet.

Have you seen this thread?:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=92550

The technique shows a lot of promise and could work pretty well with what you have plus a simple reflector. It's a pretty good way to learn how to use light.

Zarathustra

As far as getting your flashes to work off camera at the same time (I'm assuming that you can't use both the IR and the FM at the same time) you can pick up the Cactus V2s from http://www.gadgetinfinity.com. $32 for the transmitter and one receiver, $20 for another receiver and you are good to go. They aren't the most reliable pieces of equipment but I've been using mine for a while and they haven't made me mad enough to shell out the $900 for the same number of Pocket Wizards. Admittedly most of the problems that I've had with failures to fire have been due to the transmitter being too close to the receiver.

Hope that helped.

Art Scott

If you can get a copy of Gowlands "NEW" Guide to Glamour Photography....this photographer of stars, pin ups, playboy bunnies, snap on and rigid calendars shows with diagrams how he did his shoots....he even expalins why he used the cameras he used, whether it be his 35mm or his own designed and built twin-lens 4x5 or 8x10 cameras.....
You may find it on Amazon for anywhere from $5 - $35, depending if the seller is trying to just sell a used book or sell it as collectable new.....but it is a very good book with great photos of beautiful women and diagrams......Peter Gowland shot tons of studio stuff with only 1 light and 12 or 14 foot umbrella mounted from the middle of the ceiling on a swivel....so it was basically equi-doistance from all walls................He and his wife shot tons of nude work and most all of his books have nudes as well as swimsuit photos...he was shooting during the height of the pin up eras and girly calendar times........

OffTopic

Mnemosyne, you mention Strobist and owning a 285 - have you checked out MPEX's starving student kits? Moishe put those kits together for exactly for people like you based upon the recommendations of the Strobist community.

Also, there are numerous discussion threads there (on the Strobist discussion board on flickr) on the questions you are asking - d-i-y lighting modifiers such as how to make your own softbox, there are probably 50 different threads on making your own beauty dish, almost as many on d-i-y- ringflashes. All of the threads have step-by-step instructions, photos, and examples of photos taken with the modifier. There is so much info there that it will overwhelm you and you won't know where to start. And those guys/girls are doing some unbelievable lighting.

I'm wondering if maybe you found the Strobist Blog, but didn't wander over to the discussion threads?

And I'll second the V2s. I've been happy with mine. I didn't want to commit to PWs until I was sure I could get the hang of manually setting flash exposures and understand the whole off-camera lighting thing. Some day I might step up, but as long they're working for me.... Next step up from V2s would probably be Alien Bees and CyberSyncs, but I think that might be out of range of most college students' budgets.

Hot lights like flood lights from Lowes can work for objects, but they call them hot lights for a reason and they are miserable for human subjects. We were using one to add some light in a garage one time (to shoot a jeep, not a person) and I happened to walk in front of one for a second and it was brutal.

Mnemosyne

I'm just trying to find something I can afford right now that will give me maximum lighting, but at the same time will allow me to basically distort light and use it in different ways. Unorthodox creative I guess you could say I am.

And no I haven't been to the Strobist discussions, but I'll check them out more closely.