studio at home

Hi,

I'm planning to set up a studio at my place. The room available is limited to about 4m by 4m. Is this enough to do portrait work? What kind of flashes would be most recommended and what about accessoires?

many thanks,

wouter.

Welcome, wouter... :cool:

As I've often said, portraits can be anything from a headshot (or even tighter) to having the person small in the shot as part of a much larger environment.

The size space you describe is large enough to do a lot of different kinds of shooting. And if by portraits you mean headshots, that yes, it should big enough...

As for lighting, there should be quite a few threads in this forum dealing with basic setups. To start, a couple of halogen hot lights and maybe a compact off-camera flash unit would be enough to get you going...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wouterdhoye

Hi,

I'm planning to set up a studio at my place. The room available is limited to about 4m by 4m. Is this enough to do portrait work? What kind of flashes would be most recommended and what about accessoires?

many thanks,

wouter.

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wouterdhoye,,,,4 X 4 metres is enough for head shots to waist high portraits,,,also depending on your lenses..
As for flash set up,,how long is a piece of string???And how much do you want to spend???
Here is my very simple and portable set up...
2x Canon 580EX Speedlite flashes
1x Canon ST-E2 Flash transmitter
2x Umbrellas (one 45" white,one 36" translucent)
2x Stands
1x Lastolite gold/white reflector.

Works a treat..Check out the example..

Jurgen
Australia

I just caught your post while taking a break from experimenting with a different light for headshots. The attached pic [ a self portrait!] was taken using very simple equipment. Only one light was used, a 200 watt household bulb in a 14 inch reflector shot thru a 36 inch translucent umbrella. A white foamcore reflector was placed on the opposite side. The backdrop was a grey wool blanket. My shooting area is slightly smaller than the area you have available. No post processing has been done to the image at this time. There is a small reflection in my glasses which can be touched out. More can be done by adding more lights but I have been trying to see what can be done with the least equipment. Hope this gives you some ideas and encouragment to experiment to see what you can achieve. Bye for now.

Hi gimp,,,,nice work...So much can be done with the simplest lighting...In reality I prefer to keep my lighting simple...So many portraits are ruined by over lighting the subject..

My portrait of Cheridan my daughter was lit by a single Canon 580EX Speedlite bounced out of a 45" white brolly just to the left of centre..I placed the brolly about 1 1/2 metres from the subject..

Jurgen
Australia

Thnaks for your reactions,

Most likely I will buy myself an aditional SB800 that will be able to work in conjunction with the SB600 and some tripods and sync cable. Then I can start playing around...

wouter.

if anyone has specific recommendations regarding this kind of setup don't hesitate to let me know... :thumbsup: