Small Home Studio...

Mike Lane

Okay, hopefully this isn't already a well covered topic. My future business appears to be more related to webdesign than to photography. The plan is to have photography play a prominant roll in my future designs (smugmug sites not withstanding since they do not lend themselves to someone else's photography being displayed in the design). So one large part of this is to have photographic elements make up the sites. And that would take some kind of small studio setup.

Of course, it woudn't be a bad thing to have a studio to do portraits or something too. I'm not totally nixing the idea of earning from photography mind you.

This is something I'm still kicking around and it is something I've got half a year or so to decide on the specifics. So for now I'm just wondering if anyone has any ideas about what kinds of things I should consider. Also just wondering if there are any products that anyone thinks I should consider. Here are some things that have crossed my mind.

• light tent - not sure what size I'd need
• lighting (obviously - not sure what or how much though)
• backdrop
• lenses - macro but nothing long I guess (as much as I'd like to have a canon 180 f/3.5L :wink) and nice standard lenses too.
• stands
• power
• reflectors - for graphic elements? Not too sure how useful these would be, any ideas?

Not all of that is required, just some ideas I've been mulling around.

I'm not opposed to a kit at all. I can rent a lot of stuff right now, but I won't be living here forever and who knows if my next place will have a camera shop like Glazer's in Seattle???

I've got a 20D and for the purposes of putting things on the web, that's more than fine. If the business blossoms and I get print business, I will probably work to update my gear but not in the short term. At any rate, the 1.6 crop factor could be an issue given the space constraints I'm likely to have.

My goal is to never to be forced to resort to stock agencies. Who knows maybe I can actually contribute to stock agencies eventually? :thumb Anyhow, this is what I've kind of been kicking around. What do you guys think?

ian408

Things like the light box/tent depend on how big an item you want
to shoot. There are small kits that would handily contain a vase of
flowers for around $750. I don't know their quality.

Certainly, a set of reflectors, some light stands, umbrellas and a reflector
holder would do you shooting with just flash. You could also pickup a
softbox like what Shay'd recommended in another post. That would be a
basic light kit.

Not sure about the backdrops. But as I mentioned in another post, I saw
them advert'ed at Adromada (sp?) for $89 for 10x24 (which is a good sized
back drop). If you do get a large one, you'll need a set of stands for it as
well.

Good luck!

Ian

rjpat

If you just want to get some things to start, try Ebay. I picked up a 24X24X24 light tent for about $40, a black backdrop (10X20) for $45 and a portable backdrop holder for $60. So, you can get some good deals there, but you have to work at it (no free lunch, lol).