Beginner needs help.

[shamilt1]

Hi all. I sell antique furniture on ebay - mainly chairs, and have decided to try make my photo's more professional looking to increase sales. I have a keen interest in photography and have a Dynax 7D digital slr. I plan to get a paper background roll and support, but what lighting setup do I need. I know a good photo is not just the equipment - I will experiment to get the effect I am after, but I need a few pointers in the right direction regarding lights, umbrellas, diffusers etc. I have uploaded a couple of pictures to give you the general idea. I have seen a kit for around £180 that has two tungsten 500w lights on stands and two umbrellas. Would this be what I need. Thanks in advance for your help, Steve.

[another view]

Two problems with hot lights (tungsten). They get, well, hot. Also, they don't put out as much light as a strobe or mono light would. This would be a problem with people as you may get some blurring with the longer shutter speed that you'd have to use because of the lower amout of light, and they may get uncomfortable or start sweating. Food might not do well here either (melting ice cream, etc).

However, you may be fine with furniture. It doesn't move and won't melt so a long shutter speed isn't a problem. I'd put your DSLR on the lowest possible ISO, use a moderately small aperture like f11 and see what that gives you for a shutter speed. It may be a few or several seconds, but that shouldn't be any problem as long as you use a sturdy tripod. Camera batteries won't last long so be sure to have a spare that's ready to go.

Also, this would be a great time to do a custom white balance. The colors will be correct at time of capture and you'll only have to do it once per session (unless you change your lighting, then it's a good idea to re-do it just to be safe).

You can get a good idea about lighting by looking at shots that you like. Look at the two chair shots that you posted - you can see that the one in color was shot with one light on the left at about 45 degrees to the camera. The one on the right was done with two lights - the one on the right a little brighter than the one on the left. My guess, anyway - look at the shadows by the legs. You can adjust the brightness of the lights by just moving them towards and away from the chair if they don't have any controls.

[jdugger]

I agree with the tungsten lighting it can be very problematic. Commercial lighting setups get very spendy. Commercial photographers us soft box type diffusers on there main lights rather than umbrellas because the soft box is desigend to mimic diffused natrual light (i.e. the soft even light of a cloudy day) in a soft box the the main light is turned to face the subject and the strob is enclosed in the diffuser (a cloth box usually black on the side and back and white material on the front.

If you are going to purchase a lighting system I would not go with tungsten lights. I would buy a set of monolights that can operate as a slave if needed. In an entry set you will most likely get a set of standard umbrellas white only. Make sure the set you buy can take a soft box attachment for future use (not all monlights are made to accept soft box diffusers). Since soft boxes can cost as much as the monolights (for good ones), you can create the effect of the soft box in a couple of ways.

If your set comes with standard white umbrellas you can point the monolight at the subject and place the white umbrella in front of the strobe and then hang a white sheet in front of umbrella between it and the subject. This will further diffuse the light. use a reflector on the opposite side to bounce light back on the other side of the subject to reduce shadows created by the mainlight.

Good luck