Budget home studio...

lawrie29

lawrie29

Balloons! Yay!
Suspended / Banned
Messages
5,051
Name
Lawrie
Edit My Images
Yes
I have just taken some high key headshots using this setup:

Setup:





Background is a plain white door, with a tissue over the door handle, reflectors are cheap paper tablecloths (99p for a pack of six?) taped to 2 clothes maidens.

Flash is mounted on a hotshoe which I bought from Jessops for 99p in the sale, which means I can now mount it on my tripod. 99p Carex diffuser on the flashgun, which is a Jessops 300D - £24 ages ago, has 4 power settings, and fires remotely fron the on camera flash. I used a clip to hold the cover of a box which is black on one side and white on the other as a reflector to keep the light from the flashhead flooding the subject.

Had a lot of trial and error to try and get things to work for the shots below.

I am looking for advice on what I can do to improve these shots, and take more consistantly good ones, on a budget. Like a tenner. I am not against bodging things or making things, just want to keep it cheap.
 
1)


2)


3)


4)


Only did a quick PP, so I know the colours/exposures aren't 100%
 
Really well done m8,i like #1 the best,that is a great result using a home made setup,love it.:clap::):thumbs:
 
Thanks James, appreciate the comments.
 
Great results mate. It just shows that knowing what to do can be as (if not more) important than having expensive kit.
 
treeman said:
Not bad at all, well done. :thumbs:

The last two would be improved IMHO with a reflector on her lap to put some fill light back into her face.
Click to expand...

Thats what I am looking for!

A4 x 2 paper glued to a peice of card!!

THat will help with light in the face perfectly.
 
A very interesting experiment, thanks for posting looks very fun.

I agree with the reflector advice mentioned earlier. The biggest problem you have, especially in your first few, is light spill of your background that seriously destroying edge detail. (hair especially)

But good on you! great to experiment with this kinda DIY thing - for the cost it set to set up, you cant complain hehe :clap::D
 
Anyone know whether I would be better getting a white shower curtain and using the flash behind this?

I tried using the paper tablecloths, but they are too thick and swallowed too much light. Would this help with the light leakage onto the subjects?
 
Anyone know whether I would be better getting a white shower curtain and using the flash behind this?
Click to expand...

You need to create a tent around the flash to make sure all the light goes through the curtain and isn't just bounced back behind the flash. Like a soft box. Or you could try bouncing the light off a large white surface, which will make the light source bigger and consequently softer.
 
to prevent light spill on your subject you need to move your subject away from the background... of course in this set up in which just one light is used, not sure how you would do that without your subject lighting messing up
 
lawrie29 said:
Anyone know whether I would be better getting a white shower curtain and using the flash behind this?

I tried using the paper tablecloths, but they are too thick and swallowed too much light. Would this help with the light leakage onto the subjects?
Click to expand...
You could try skirt lining material from your local shop.Almost the same as used in many softboxes.Approx £3.50 a metre
 
As you can see, the flashhead was used "landscape", Anyone have any experience with flipping it to "portrait", gives me more vertical light maybe?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top