Tips for Photoshoot and cheap lighting equipment?

Question

Hi, my friends and I are planning a photoshoot next week mainly for fun but also for furthering my photographic skills. It's my first time to do a planned photoshoot, most of my shots are spontaneous, street and experimental. So I think I'm really going to be conscious of thinking beautiful poses, angles, concepts for a photograph. I use a Canon A700, a point-and-shoot digital camera, not that I'm bettling my camera (I love my camera) but it does have its limitations like not having the capability of adjusting DOF (unlike dslrs) which is very essential in portrait photography...

As much as I love natural lighting in photographs, I also want to take it to another level like using studio light. But I'm really really clueless when it comes to it. What should I start with?

Answer 1

When I first got semi-serious about photography, I had a digital p&s also. I made a lot of my own lighting , and lighting acessories. I wasnt sure what I needed, and was tight on a budget at the time.

First thing I did, was develope some refectors for outdoor shooting. Mostly they were used for fill lighting. I got a couple pieces of 2'x4' foam board, and used ductape as a hinge to connect them. I used spray adhesive, and several pieces of mylar from a craftstore I bonded the mylar to the foamboard. Silver on one side, gold on the other. They work great to fill in shadow (silver for light skin, gold for darker). It helps to have an assistant, but you can use 3' gardening steaks to attach the board to if necessary.

I made diffusers of different material, to cover my on camera flash. I used coffee filter, rice paper, transparent gift wrap (red, blue, green, yellow), to give me different looks.

I purchased a quantaray ms1 ($20), optical slave flash. It has some limits, but works indoors well. Your camera flash sets the ms1 flash off, letting you place it whereever you want, for whatever purpose. IF your camera uses pre-flash for setting levels, there is a qms1 ($40). I bought 2 ms1's. It has been a great, and tiny investment. I still use them a bit.

For the ms1's, I built snoots, barndoors, and other things to allow me to adapt light the way I wanted. Try here, http://strobist.blogspot.com/ for more tips on DIY lighting.

I used, basically, left over material from other projects, so they were all rather inexpensive.

I eventually purchased several 12" round silver worklights from walmart ($8), and used 150-200wt bulbs for lighting. You can build snoots, doors, and "gel" holders, to add color to your sets.

Occasionally, on sale, you can find 4' flourescent fixtures ($4-$6) to use for lighting. You can get "natural light" tubes, so it doesnt mess with your whitebalance. Eventually you can get three, set them up as a triangle, shoot thru the middle, and it will give well lighted shots of your subjects. Or set them up on end to the sides of the subject, there are many setups you can use.

I still use my reflectors, for indoor use, to bounce my light sources off of. They arent perfect, but for less than a hundred bucks, you get a lot of stuff to play with, learn a lot, and figure out what higher end "toys" you want to spend $$'s on.

Enjoy.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

The key to a good shoot starts really with the lighting. I understand not having a lot of money for studio lighting. I did shoots for a long time simply using frosted 100-watt lightbulbs as makeshift photofloods. Since most professional photofloods are between 250-watts to 500-watts, you'll need to incorporate natural light too, but it gives you the "studio feel" without looking too artificial. You can screw the bulbs into normal light bulb sockets, or you can buy inexpensive clamp fixtures and reflectors, which I think are a worthy investment and give you more flexibility in placing your light. Call up a few hardware stores and see if they stock them.

You're going for a studio shoot here, so I would go with a plain background (a well-lit, mostly unfurnished room, maybe?) or throw some white sheets over a few chairs and just use that. You want the focus to be on your subjects.

Also, you mentioned that what you like shooting are spontanious shots, which suggests to me that you like photographing things the way they actually are. That's fantastic--so don't worry so much about "posing" your subjects. Let them just relax in front of the camera. Of course, pay attention to things like levels, and make sure that everyone's well-lit, etc. etc., but the bottom line is let your friends be who they are. Shoot things for fun, even if it doesn't seem like a particularly good shot. It's always surprising what somehow works.

Good luck, have fun!!

Answer 4

Hey! That florescent triangle is a great idea! How creative.

Here's my cheapo tips.

I've looked at the specs for the Canon A700. Looks like you can choose aperture priority. With that you can control DOF.

Shoot the lowest ISO you've got.
Shoot with the focal length above 85mm.

Hardware shops have these 10" reflector light bulb clamp combos really cheap. Great to start with but get 100+ watt natural light bulbs and set your camera to the tungsten setting.

If you can afford any kind of stand to clamp those light to that will help, friends willing to stand there holding them would be nice but good luck there.

Start with plain or colored sheets as a backdrop. I once used a plain white one and used Miracle-Gro in a spray bottle and a sponge that made a great, on the fly cloud backdrop. I just left it stapled to my wall it looked so nice.

This is just cheap improv stuff untill you get a feel for what you want / need.

If you've got any cash at all get the best tripod you can afford, I recommend Bogen (If you're serious about shooting this will last you a lifetime).

Good luck to you

Me?
http://lamplightphoto.com

Answer 5

Photography equipment doesn't come cheap, so for practice use anything from table lamps (with the lamp shade turned upside-down and pointed to the subject, to a white sheet over a ceiling lamp or the camer flash, etc. Use a soft-pink or light blue bulb to cut down on the yellow flourescence. You can always use lens filters as well to create different effects.

Get creative!

Answer 6

1- Shoot in the shade 2- Shoot in raw so you can fix the white balance 3- If it's even slightly windy, you will have a dickens of a time with your "backdrop" outdoors 4- If you are trying to do a highkey shoot with just natural light ... you are going to be sorely disappointed. 5- Next time, see if you can rent a flash or two with some pocket wizards. Total cost around 60$ - 80$ for a week end.

Answer 7

If you are looking for a good photography course you absolutely have to check this great web site: http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=557 .

It's the best video course I followed and I'm able to take stunning pictures now.
Regards

Answer 8

go to lowes/walmart/home depot hardware get some construction "clip" lamps. The kind with the aluminum bowl looking back to it. Then buy the highest wattage bulbs you can get. get a variety of flourescent/tungsten/halogen and spot/flood/soft/natural and experiment. The more lights the better. In a pinch I have set up my own portable studio for 60.00 for some band shots. just gotta improvise. Here's an example of some shots with very cheap lightinig.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/shuallyo/bandall-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/shuallyo/wyatt4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/shuallyo/branderpool1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/shuallyo/wyattsback.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/shuallyo/greenlite1darker.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v705/shuallyo/silohette1.jpg

BTW. The background of the pics is a king size black bedsheet for 20.00. except for the bottom few, they were taken in a very small room too...... while a party was going on lol

Answer 9

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