Photographing Small Things

VespaFitz

Howdy all:

I've got an equipment question and this seems like the best place to ask it.

We do a lot of model, book and literature photography at work and we've achieved a limited amount of success doing it. Our best work happens when the weather's decent outside and we can shoot in natural light.

The problem is that we're here in Vermont, and the weather stinks for several months of the year. We're looking to set up a small studio inside the office so we can shoot small stuff year-round.

Ideally, what would we need for equipment. I'm guessing because I just don't know, but we were thinking about a background stand with some background paper, and a couple of softboxes with 500 watt bulbs. But I could be way off and I'd like to get some more information.

Thanks in advance.

Shay Stephens

A background stand for seamless paper would be good. As far as lights, I would recommend flash units due to their brighter light output. If you ever shoot people you will be glad for the extra shutter speed and or ability to use smaller apertures to help get the DOF you need.

If you shoot standard stuff a three light setup will do most of what you need. One main, one fill, and one background.

More than three lights will give you the ability to shoot more complicated setups, large hot-white backgrounds, etc.

My suggestion for a small studio setup would be Alien Bee lights ( http://www.alienbees.com ). They accept softboxes, umbrellas, barn doors, etc. They are relatively inexpensive but well made and fully featured. Depending on the size of your studio, you can easily use the B400 units for anything and everything with power to spare. The B800 and B1600 units will give you more power for lighting larger spaces and or using smaller apertures than f/8 with softboxes.

Each light needs a lightstand. I would recommend softboxes in the various sizes you think you will need. And a selection of grids is wonderful to have to give you a spot light look.

But to get more specific would need more info from you as to the studio size, range of subjects photographed, etc.

VespaFitz wrote:

Howdy all:

I've got an equipment question and this seems like the best place to ask it.

We do a lot of model, book and literature photography at work and we've achieved a limited amount of success doing it. Our best work happens when the weather's decent outside and we can shoot in natural light.

The problem is that we're here in Vermont, and the weather stinks for several months of the year. We're looking to set up a small studio inside the office so we can shoot small stuff year-round.

Ideally, what would we need for equipment. I'm guessing because I just don't know, but we were thinking about a background stand with some background paper, and a couple of softboxes with 500 watt bulbs. But I could be way off and I'd like to get some more information.

Thanks in advance.

DoctorIt

Are these things small enough to fit inside a little photo tent? I would imagine yes. Dugmar had some success with not much extra equipment using an EZcube photo tent... check his thread here:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=4443



you said small things

wxwax

DOP=depth of field.

VespaFitz

DoctorIt wrote:

Are these things small enough to fit inside a little photo tent? I would imagine yes. Dugmar had some success with not much extra equipment using an EZcube photo tent... check his thread here:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=4443



you said small things

Hey, I think that's exactly what we're looking for. The extra large one is big enough that we could do wheels and stuff, and we could always have a table with a cloth on it for smaller stuff.

Thanks!

DoctorIt

VespaFitz wrote:

Hey, I think that's exactly what we're looking for. The extra large one is big enough that we could do wheels and stuff, and we could always have a table with a cloth on it for smaller stuff.

Thanks!

You're welcome.

DoctorIt

wxwax wrote:

DOP=depth of field.

really?


you sound like me the other day with the 34mm f/1.5...

wxwax

DoctorIt wrote:

really?


you sound like me the other day with the 34mm f/1.5...

Oops. Where's that blush smilie?