 Marta Azevedo |
What is the Cheapest Way to Set Up a Studio? I would like to set up a studio but I don't have much money. Have you heard about photo flood light? Thank you.
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John A. Lind |
Marta, "Photo floods" are commonly called "hot lights" or "continuous lighting." They are incandescent lights with a specific color temperature for *tungsten* balanced film (versus daylight film that nearly everyone uses). They're called "hot lights" for good reason; they get hot, and so do those who are being illuminated by them! The light they put out is also **not** the same as daylight and using daylight film with them will produce photographs that look very yellowish. I recommend exploring some alternatives by using some inexpensive flash equipment. I just had a discussion today with a person at work about setting up a small basement studio for doing portraits of family members. For work where you can put flash fairly close, here is a list of minimal equipment: Total cost of this should be about $300 to $400 for new equipment. Bogen (Manfrotto) stands are about $40-$50 each, shoe adapters about $15-$20 each, the flashes are about $70-$90 each, umbrellas are about $15-20 each, and the flash trigger cord is about $20. The only thing you're missing is a flash meter. You can either get a very inexpensive one for about $70 or do what another friend of mine did . . . calibrate his standard setup by performing an experiment to determine what lens aperture he should use. He measured light-to-subject distances and shot a couple test rolls of film using different lens aperture settings for each power setting on his flash units, and recorded what he used for each frame of film. Then he picked what worked best for each power setting and wrote it on a small card. The only disadvantage is if he decides to do something different with his lights (different distances and/or power levels he did not calibrate). If you need the flash units to recover for the next photograph faster, you can get AC power adapters for them instead of running them on internal batteries.
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Marta Azevedo |
Thanks a lot, John. So you don't recommend continous lighting. That's what I tought about yellowish and the heat. I will follow your recommendations.
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Josh Hudson |
Ok.. a little late in comming but this is important for people who find this on the net. First of all. Myths about continuous lights-- although tungsten light is not the same color temperature as daylight, you can use tungsten balanced film, you can use color corrected bulbs and you can use color correcting reflectors. Second, the two true disadvantages of continous lighting is heat and power. In order to get a good exposure on your lights you need a LOT of light. The kind that is easy to get with a strobe not so simple with continuous lighting. The more light, the more heat and the most cost on your electric bill. (you might even pop a fuse or two). A solution to the power/heat problem is to use bulbs like HMIs, but they are so expensive, you will wonder why you didn't just buy strobes to begin with. But don't discount continous lighting. There great things you can do with flood lights that you can't do with flash. It is all a matter of learning your craft.
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Marta Azevedo |
Thank you, Josh. I photograhed food with continous light and the photos came out good. Hugs,
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