Indoor Studio Inspiration

[Tri Danimal]

I am thinking about adding a small indoor studio to our house. Thinks I want to shoot would be Macro/ up close (flowers, lego man, maybe portraits), Products, Dog. With that said, show me what you guys are using at your place to capture some of your amazing images.

[Manfred M]

My home studio is highly portable and gets set up as required, when required, so it's impossible to show it. It's primarily used for portraiture, but I have also done some still-life work from time to time.

From an equipment standpoint I have 4 Paul C Buff Einstein 640 studio lights with light stands, a Godox Wistro 360 bare-bulb flash and two Nikon Speedlights (SB-600 and SB-900) with Pocket Wizard radio triggers for all the lights except the Godox, which uses a proprietary Godox transmitter and receiver.

I have numerous light stands, including one with a boom arm as well as a short background light stand. I own a number of softbox modifiers; small, medium and large rectangular ones, a couple of striplights, two octaboxes, 3 umbrellas, snoot, beauty dish, grids, gels, reflectors, clamps, etc, etc. I have a background stand and tend to use either white, black or gray seamless paper. I do take this equipment into the field for shooting too.

I also have access to three or four studios around town. I do most of my portrait shooting at the photo club that I belong to simply because of the room size (it's a converted racquet ball court, with good height, width and length, so I can be much more creative there. At $CAD 35 for a four hour session, it is quite cost effective shooting there.

The is the Photo Club studio; you can see why I prefer renting it, rather than setting up everything at home.

[DanK]

Daniel,

It all depends on what the primary use will be. You included both flower macros and portraits. Those are best served by very different setups. What I use for flower macros wouldn't be useful to Manfred for portraits.

For flower macros, all you need is a stable platform for a tripod, a background, and a remote release. For lighting, I use continuous lighting, which has the advantage that you can see the effects of altering the lighting in real time before taking any photos. The disadvantage is slow shutter speeds, which in turn require more stability and freedom from vibration. For most of my flower macros (you can see them here), I use a simple black background and two lights, usually one reflected off an umbrella for diffused light and the other direct light but with a diffuser in front. I use halogen bulbs in the fixtures. The fixtures themselves are cheap "hair lights", which cost about $100 US each. It's a very simple setup.

Here's an iPhone photo of my setup years ago:



the flower is held by a wimberley plamp, but I often just place them in foam or a vase on top of a pile of books, which you can see in this shot.

Here's a shot of that same type of flower, but taken with a slightly different arrangement of the same lights:



Keep in mind that if you use continuous light, you will need a very stable environment, especially if you are going to stack. (Almost all of my flower shots are focus-stacked.) Even though I use a very heavy table, vibration in the wood floor underneath it is a problem. I have to stand extremely still, lock up the mirror, and wait to make sure everything settles. I am thinking of moving it all to the basement so that I can put it on a concrete floor.

Dan

[Tri Danimal]

Manfred and DanK, thanks for your inputs. I am going to try to put together a studio in the coming week or two for flower and macro photography. I think I have space available in the garage that I can use for this.

[Manfred M]

I think I have space available in the garage that I can use for this.

One word of caution. Most studios have neutral coloured walls, floors and ceilings to prevent getting a colour cast in your image. My garage would be quite unsuitable as it has a weathered plywood interior, i.e. a warm brown floor and ceiling. This may or may not be an issue in your garage.

[rpcrowe]

This is how I used to set up for my dog portraits...

When we were breeding and showing dogs this was just fine because I would set up to photograph my dogs about once per month or less; so the rather complicated setup was no problem. It did result in some pretty nice dog portraits...

However when we began Maltese Rescue California, I started photographing over two hundred dogs each year and decided that I needed a more simple setup and one that could break down easier. So I just threw a piece of fabric over an armchair and shot the portraits with a softbox and a Hotshoe flash modified with a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro...

Over the years, I have accumulated fabric of many types in many colors and will use a color which I consider appropriate for each dog. The results are perfectly adequate for posting on our Internet rescue sites...


To get down to the dog's eye level, I sit on a roll around desk chair. My wife controls the dog from behind the chair with a thin show lead which I then clone out...
I can set up and break down my setup in a minute or two. Standardizing the imagery makes post processing quite a bit easier and quicker...
If I need to photograph larger dogs, I will try to shoot outdoors or will set up in my garage. Multiple dogs can be complicated...

Sometimes pure luck will result in a nice image. I shot the above image to illustrate controlling multiple dogs. Then, I noticed how the little boxer pup seemed to be looking at his dad. I did a bit of cropping and cloning which resulted in this rather heartwarming image...