New Here and New to All

sepplett

Hello all!!

I am new here and also new to digital photography. I was wondering if someone could help me. I want to purchase a studio set for my home, the backdrops, light boxes etc but am unsure if anything will work with my camera. I have an Olympus E620. Can I use lightboxes with this? With my 35 mm everything had to be hooked up to the camera, is this true with my digital camera? Sorry for the ignorance, but like I said I am in new territory.

ziggy53

sepplett wrote:

Hello all!!

I am new here and also new to digital photography. I was wondering if someone could help me. I want to purchase a studio set for my home, the backdrops, light boxes etc but am unsure if anything will work with my camera. I have an Olympus E620. Can I use lightboxes with this? With my 35 mm everything had to be hooked up to the camera, is this true with my digital camera? Sorry for the ignorance, but like I said I am in new territory.

Sepplett, welcome to the Digital Grin.

Please do elaborate more on what you intend to do with the home studio and how involved you wish to become.

What space do you have for the studio?
Is this for product, people, or ...?
What level of lighting do you desire? (Professional results, intermediate to advanced, just getting started - let's not go crazy. )
Besides the E620 what lenses and flash equipment do you already own?

Scott_Quier

sepplett wrote:

Hello all!!

I am new here and also new to digital photography. I was wondering if someone could help me. I want to purchase a studio set for my home, the backdrops, light boxes etc but am unsure if anything will work with my camera. I have an Olympus E620. Can I use lightboxes with this? With my 35 mm everything had to be hooked up to the camera, is this true with my digital camera? Sorry for the ignorance, but like I said I am in new territory.

- Welcome!

Everything Ziggy said.

A direct answer to your questions:

Yes, you can use this camera in a studio setting.

Yes, you can use this camera with off-camera flash/strobes. It will require you to determine the best way (for you) to trigger your lighting. There are many alternatives. Wireless, you can use any number of radio transmitters. I can't find a reference to a PC-sync port on the camera, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have one. If it does, you can also trigger the flashes with a wired connection. Bottom line, no not everything has to be connected (via wire) to the camera - radio tranmitter/triggers are a very nice accessory.

sepplett

ziggy53 wrote:

Sepplett, welcome to the Digital Grin.

Please do elaborate more on what you intend to do with the home studio and how involved you wish to become.

What space do you have for the studio?
Is this for product, people, or ...?
What level of lighting do you desire? (Professional results, intermediate to advanced, just getting started - let's not go crazy. )
Besides the E620 what lenses and flash equipment do you already own?

Ziggy,

Thanks for the feedback. I would like to establish the area for product and people. I would like to have professional results and but I am just getting started, sooooo I don't really know where to go from here.

I was hoping to set up a room in the basement, but it's damp so now I am working on stealing the garage from my husband for my space.

The lenses I have are the two that came with the camera at this time. They are a 14-42 mm and a 40-150 mm.
What would you recommend for lenses?

I have an external flash, but I think I may need a new one.

Any advice is greatly appreciated and again, thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

sepplett

Scott_Quier wrote:

- Welcome!

Everything Ziggy said.

A direct answer to your questions:

Yes, you can use this camera in a studio setting.

Yes, you can use this camera with off-camera flash/strobes. It will require you to determine the best way (for you) to trigger your lighting. There are many alternatives. Wireless, you can use any number of radio transmitters. I can't find a reference to a PC-sync port on the camera, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have one. If it does, you can also trigger the flashes with a wired connection. Bottom line, no not everything has to be connected (via wire) to the camera - radio tranmitter/triggers are a very nice accessory.

Scott,

Thank you also for responding to my question. I also can't find a pc-port, so I believe I would have to trigger my flash, I would like a trigger that is easy to manage with as little work to me. What do you recommend?

And thank you for your response!!

Stephanie

ziggy53

sepplett wrote:

Ziggy,

Thanks for the feedback. I would like to establish the area for product and people. I would like to have professional results and but I am just getting started, sooooo I don't really know where to go from here.

I was hoping to set up a room in the basement, but it's damp so now I am working on stealing the garage from my husband for my space.

The lenses I have are the two that came with the camera at this time. They are a 14-42 mm and a 40-150 mm.
What would you recommend for lenses?

I have an external flash, but I think I may need a new one.

Any advice is greatly appreciated and again, thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

People "and" product is pretty ambitious, and may require a major investment of capital.

Let's start with people portraiture.

3 lights is a fairly minimal standard number of lights, and you would need to be a little creative in their use. Granted, you can do a pretty reasonable head shot with just a single light and some reflectors, but it takes some careful positioning. See the following thread for some hints:

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

To get a full repertoire of lighting setups I recommend 4 monolights, but 3 will do along with a portable flash.

To see why I recommend 4 lights look at the following setups:

http://www.geocities.com/glowluzid/portrait/portrait.html

For product photography I also recommend 4 lights, key, fill, and then 2 for lighting a sweep under a product table. I used a combination of product table and copy stand for years and 4 monolights was awfully handy. Speedlights might be used if you just have a few product setups, but 4 lights will give you versatility.

For lenses you might be OK for product photography because you will often need small apertures for maximum DOF, and your lenses will work pretty well at smaller apertures. If you are doing web images I would be sure that what you have is OK.

For portraiture it is highly desirable to have lenses with very large apertures so that you have some options and control over DOF. I am not so sure that your current lenses will cover all the styles you may wish to employ.

Portraiture may also require rather specialized studio dimensions. Seated portraits may be done in just about any livingroom sized room. Full-length and 3/4 length portraits require fairly high ceilings for real control over the angles appropriate for some styles. The taller the subject or the larger the number of individuals, the higher you should place the key light(s) for some styles of lighting.

Jeremy Winterberg

I run my studio out of my basement, and let me tell you... its hard. I agree with what everyone is telling you. You definitely will need a long room, and a higher ceiling. I work with a space that is roughly 20ft long and 10ft wide and around 7.5-8ft tall... barely fits my backdrop holder - its a tight fit. and I really need a taller ceiling.

I've just been using my Canon 580EX II with a Cactus wireless trigger on a umbrella holder on a lightstand with an umbrella... Then I use a $5 piece of white foam core for a reflector. I'm actually (maybe) purchasing an AlienBee 800 or two in a couple days... still thinking about it

You can achieve very good results with not alot of equipment.

The perfect setup would consist of 4 lights minimum. 1 main light, 1 fill light, 1 hair light, 1 backdrop light.

typically the main light should be your brightest light. for example I will suggest w/s monolights, but they do not need to be this high/nice. 1600ws for the main, 800ws for the fill, 400ws for the hair and backdrop lights. but you could get cheaper lights and use 200ws lights for all of them, but change the settings so they output more that the others.

just sharing some of the research I've done whilst shopping for monolights

swintonphoto

sepplett wrote:

Hello all!!

I am new here and also new to digital photography. I was wondering if someone could help me. I want to purchase a studio set for my home, the backdrops, light boxes etc but am unsure if anything will work with my camera. I have an Olympus E620. Can I use lightboxes with this? With my 35 mm everything had to be hooked up to the camera, is this true with my digital camera? Sorry for the ignorance, but like I said I am in new territory.

You have yourself a wonderful camera. I am a happy E-620 owner and it is my primary camera for my professional studio. I love it. The lenses it comes with are remarkably sharp. If you are ever interested in their higher professional grade lenses that have larger apertures and have a little $ to pour into some great lenses I would be happy to help. I have a bunch of Olympus lenses and cameras. The E-620 is by far my favorite offering by them yet.
In regards to lights - there is some good feedback here. I would consider getting yourself a few Alien Bees lights. Something like 2 B400's (see here) would be sufficient with a few stands and softboxes or shoot thru umbrellas for a great more affordable solution. If you get these or something similar you will need a safe-sync hookup to plug the strobe light cords into the camera. I would recommend this one:http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/245292-REG/Wein_W990560_Safe_Sync_Hot_Shoe_to.html
I use it - it will prevent any power surges from going between the lights and the camera. A rare possibility, but it could cause some major damage to the camera if it did happen.

sepplett

Seymore wrote:

Stephanie... there are many ways to defuse light. Along with shooting thru umbrellas... I use a light tent made from PVC, Muslin fabric and 1" binder clips for my product shoots. I think the tent cost me <$25.

HTH...

Wow that is truly a nice set up! Thank you for sharing that and the pictures, it helps and it is a wonderful idea!

Stephanie

sepplett

A Huge Thanks
Thank you all for your advise and responses they are all well received and appreciated. It's time now to do some shopping and looking around.

I am sure I will have more questions soon and thanks to you all I know just where to go.

J. Swinton~ I will definitely take you up on your offer for some information on olympus lenses in the near future!

Thanks again everyone!!

sepplett

Seymore wrote:

You're welcome. A few tips...

• don't glue, not needed. easy to rebuild to meet changing needs down the road.
• sand the ends of the PVC w/100 grit after you get them cut to length with a hacksaw. makes things easy together/easy apart.
• use 3/4" PVC. nothing here is heavy and this is adequate. Don't use 1/2", to light weight.
• 1" binder clips are in boxes of 10 (or so) @ Office Depot.
• don't snip the muslin. leave excess on one side. again, for rebuild as needed. you can't have to much, you can have to little.
• I think I got 1.5 or 2 yards of muslin @ Joann's fabric for ~$10. make sure it's thin enough, there are many different thickness's/grades of muslin.

Good luck...

Seymore,

Thanks for the additional tips, I will be passing them along to my husband, who may kill me before this is all over ! While he supports this, he will be glad when all the kinks are worked out and I am just out there doing what I love and making money .

Again, I can't tell you how much all this advise has meant! I am extremely and eternally grateful to you all and feel blessed to have such a wonderful and talented group advising me (I checked you all out and was impressed!)
Stephanie

Scott_Quier

sepplett wrote:

Again, I can't tell you how much all this advise has meant! I am extremely and eternally grateful to you all and feel blessed to have such a wonderful and talented group advising me (I checked you all out and was impressed!)
Stephanie

That's just customary DGrin good cheer and helpfulness. When you have more questions (and you will ) don't hesitate to put up your hand.

sepplett

Scott_Quier wrote:

That's just customary DGrin good cheer and helpfulness. When you have more questions (and you will ) don't hesitate to put up your hand.

Don't worry Scott, I will definitely be coming here for many future questions, you all were so helpful that you are now stuck with me.