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Setting up a Photo Studioon a BudgetWhether beginner or pro, a studio set up for yourpurposes helps you get more work done

by John Siskin

A studio is a place where a photog-rapher has control of the light,whether its daylight from a window,or strobes or quartz lights. Thereshould be no other light sources thatoverpower the photographers light.This includes anything that mightcause reflectionsyou dont want tosee a TV set reflected in your modelseyes (unless a shoot calls for that, ofcourse).

Walls and reflectionsOne of the ways I can control theseproblems is by making walls. I usu-ally do this with seamless paper orwith light panels, as in figure 1. Thepanels are one of my basic studiotools; they let me diffuse, bounce,and block light, all of which isaccomplished by changing the fabriccover of the panels. I usually use ablack coveroften Duvateentokill the reflections. These are easy toset up and put away, so they workwell in a temporary studio. I canbuild a room within a room fromthese panels.

If you are outfitting a garage as astudio, or creating a permanenthome studio, you have anotherchoice: you can mount rolls of black

seamless paper on the ceiling andbring down the paper as a wall tocontrol reflections. This is quick andeasy, especially if you use a chaindrive on your paper roll. Bogen, alsocalled Manfrotto, has a nice chaindrive (figure 2) for raising and low-ering the seamless paper. Even sim-pler is to buy a roll of black seamlesspaper and staple it to your wall.Seamless paper is available inwidths of 4.5, 9, and 12 feet, andlengths of 10, 50, and 100 meters(watch outthose 100-meter rollsare extremely heavy). Anothermethod is to hang brackets and putup a curtain. Of course, if you diduse white here you could employ itas an oversized light panel. Any ofthese ideas can be adapted to yourcircumstances to bring your loca-tion under control.

Another concern is the area abovethe shot. My ceiling is not in verygood condition, so I dont bouncelight off it. If I need an overheadbounce, I either put up a light panelor pull white seamless paper alongthe ceiling. I have a set of railsmounted on the ceiling that makeeither possibility more practical (seefigure 1). Ive mounted two 10-foot

Figure 1. Light panels, an enormous help inmanipulating light, are a basic tool of studiophotography.

Figure 2. A Bogen, chain drive for raising andlowering seamless paper.

Figure 3. A Norman head mounted on a BogenMagic Arm, which is mounted onto a superclamp.

f youre a landscape or street photographer, you probably dont need a

photo studio, but for some photographers a studio is essential. For many,

this means converting a garage or spare bedroom into a studio, sometimes

temporarily for specif ic projects. In this article, Im going to lay out what

you need to create such a studio, keeping one eye on the pocketbook.

I

Figure 4. Two C-stands and a couple ofextension arms can easily hold seamless paperor other background material.

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poles to the ceiling using thread andexpansion bolts; Ive run two morepoles between them. This second setof poles moves, and I am able tohang lights, reflectors, and propsfrom them. This wont work in mostliving rooms, but it would fit prettywell into a garage studio. Everythingshould be available from your localHome Depot. Figure 4 is a Normanhead mounted on a Bogen MagicArm. The Magic Arm is mountedonto a super clamp.

The ability to mount back-grounds in the studio is critical. Inaddition to the brackets shown infigure 2, there are temporary waysto hold seamless paper or otherbackgrounds. It is easier to set upsmaller backgrounds; in fact youcan hold a small roll of seamlesspaper or a light background withtwo regular light stands and a topmade of PVC (just like the top of alight panel, but wider). For biggerbackgrounds you can buy a set ofbackground stands, but you mightbe better off with a set of C-Stands.C-stands are critical around the stu-dio; they are like light stands onsteroids. If you use two C-standsand a couple of extension arms youcan easily hold seamless paper orother background material (see fig-ure 4), or hold lights or hang thingsin the shot. Another permanentmethod is to make wall brackets outof 24s (figure 5). This works well,as you can have several back-grounds set up at once. Howeverthe Bogen background rollers willwork with the U-brackets and wontwork with the wall brackets.

LightsGood photographic lights arentcheap; lights probably will be thebiggest investment you make in yourstudio. With so many productsavailable, choosing which to get canbe tough. I personally like lightswith a lot of power. This is probably

because of my history as a large-for-mat photographer. It could also bethat I dont want to be limited inwhat I do in the studio; I want to beable to manipulate the light to giveme whatever effect I want withoutworrying about using a high ISOfilm (or digital setting) or a lowaperture.

There are two types of lights that Ithink work well for still photogra-phy: quartz and strobes. Quartzlights are high-wattage continuouslights; you can see one of my quartzlights in figure 6. They produce a lotof heat, which makes them question-able for taking pictures of a livemodel. They are terrific for doingtabletop lighting, if you can standthe heat. Lowel makes some veryfine quartz lights.

Strobes are only on for about 11000second, so heat is not a problem; thisfast exposure also means that youdont have trouble with camerashake, or movement of your model.Another nice thing about strobes isthat they are color balanced for day-light, so you dont need to changethe settings on your camera.

There are some significant differ-ences in the way strobes are designed.I think the most popular strobes onthe market today are systems whereeach head plugs directly into the wall.Generally referred to as monolights(figure 7), these are very flexible unitsthat, for the most part, have continu-ous control over the power output,built-in slaves, and model lights.Slaves trigger the unit when anotherstrobe goes off, while model lightshelp the photographer see what thestrobe will do. Calumet makes someterrific units called Travelites; Paul C.Buff makes some more great unitscalled Alien Bees.

You can also get a system whereseveral strobes are designed towork off one power pack. Thesesystems have been the workhorsesof studios for decades (you can see

Figure 5. Wall brackets made of 2 4s are agood way to hold and position studio tools.

Figure 7. Theflexibility of monolightstrobes makes thempopular for studio use.

Figure 8. Norman lights with a powerpack.

Figure 6.Quartz lights

generate alot of heat,and are

better forlighting atabletop than aperson.

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some of my Norman gear in figure8). Consequently, you can often geta deal on such a system usedcheck out both Speedotron andNorman on eBay (though be leeryof the Norman 4,000-watt-secondpower pack, as they have had someproblems). Power-pack units gener-ally have higher power levels avail-able than monolight heads. If youare thinking about getting a lot oflights, these systems can be flexibleand efficient. You might also wantto check out Dyna-lite strobes.These are lightweight, efficient, andreasonably priced. Whats not tolike?

The last type of light that I use reg-ularly is battery-powered strobeswhich are tricky to define. Many ofthe manufacturers of monolights andstudio strobes now make battery sys-tems for their units. As a matter offact, Calumet, Paul C. Buff, andDyna-lite all do. I dont think of theseas battery-powered strobes becauseof their weight, and for me battery-powered stuff is location stuff. I alsowouldnt put a Vivitar 283 into thiscategorynot enough power. WhatI think of as a battery strobe is some-thing truly portable with at least 150watt-seconds of power. I have aNorman 200 B system with fourheads, three packs, three stands, twoumbrellas, and slavesall of whichfits into a single case that I can carrywith one hand (figure 9). Normanhas made battery stuff for years; youmight check out used 200B units.Lumedyne makes terrific battery-powered strobes; unfortunatelytheyre harder to find on the usedmarket.

With all these lights, you maywant to design some extra poweroutlets into your studio. We usuallyneed extra power to use strobes orquartz equipment. Also, keep thepower cords from going all over thestudio you dont want anyone totrip.

The home studio problemI have seen a lot of home studios,and I have identified one majorproblem: home studios becomehome storage areas. Of course itstarts out with storing photographicequipment; and suddenly everythingthat has no other place is in the stu-dio (take a look a figure 10). Thiskills your ability to work in the stu-dio. Storage is a problem every stu-dio faces. My studio, which is in acommercial space, has a large num-ber of things I keep as props, as wellas an 810-inch enlarger; I havealmost as much space dedicated tostorage as I do to shooting. Ofcourse, its important that yourclients dont see your mess. Thealternative is to clean out the studioevery time you want to use it, whichtakes a lot of energy.

The studio in figure 11 is veryspace efficient. Its a smaller studiospace than the garage, but maybebecause of this, the photographerput a great deal of thought into stor-age. I like the stand storage alongthe sidewall. This is a great use ofspace, but it is even better because ofthe curtain that covers all of thisstorage. The curtain is placed hereso that the gear on the sidewall doesnot create reflections. Also noticethe trash can in this shot of the side-wall its for umbrella storage. Ialso use trashcans in my studio, onefor umbrellas and light panels andanother for light stands. Trashcansare the best light-stand storage Ihave seen.

I like to have a rolling cart filledwith supplies. I can put my laptop ontop of the cart, or film holders and aloupe for the view camera. You cansee a cart in figure 11; my cart in fig-ure 12. Underneath I have suchthings as clay, cleaning products,reflectors, and other little things thatare often critical to a shoot. I reallylike to use my digital camera teth-ered to the computer, and a cart is a

Figure 9. This entire battery-powered lightingsystem fits into one not-too-heavy case.

Figure 11. A space-efficient studio that makesgreat use of storage.

Figure 12.The authorsstudio cart.

Figure 10. This studio is built in a garage. It hasblack seamless walls and extra electricalsockets. Unfortunately, the photographer doesnthave enough storage.

great way to keep the computerclose to the shoot.

Controlling lightOf course, the most important thingin a studio is to be able to manipu-late light. A huge number of toolsare available to do this in the studio,but I use just a few most of the time:umbrellas, softboxes, and light pan-els. Umbrellas, which are easy to setup and inexpensive, are in almostevery studio shot I do. They spreadlight smoothly all over the studio,sometimes over too much of the stu-dio. You can see a few differentkinds of umbrellas in figure 13. Soft-boxes are both expensive andannoying to set up, but createsmooth reflections and offer a higherdegree of control than umbrellas, sothey are great to have around thestudio (figure 14). I use light panelsall the timenot always for lighting.As I mentioned at the beginning ofthis article, I use them to block light(figure 15). I use so many of themthat I build them myself from PVCpipe and cotton fabric, and save alot of money that way.

These lighting tools fall into twobasic groups: tools that broadenlight to make it smoother, andtools that concentrate light so thatyou can affect just one part of aphotograph. I use more light-broadening tools, and I think mostothers do, too. These would bethings like umbrellas, light panels,and softboxes. The light source,whether it is a strobe or a quartzbulb, is a very small source andconsequently produces harsh shad-ows like those produced by anuncovered light bulb. Light-broad-ening tools act similarly to a lamp-shadein essence, making thelight into a bigger source. Thisinstantly reduces shadows andsoftens edges, making it easier tolight most things, both people andproducts.

The tools for detail lightinginclude grid spots, snoots, andbarn doors. All of these control thespread of your light, but they havedifferent characteristics. A gridspot is a metal honeycomb thatgoes over the light. This reducesthe spread of the light more thanany of the other tools. A light witha grid spot that is six feet from thesubject may light an area that isless than a foot wide. There arevarious sorts of grid spots, so youhave some control over the sizeand shape of the lighted area.A snoot is an empty tube that slipsover a light. This reduces thespread of a light dramatically,although not as much as a gridspot. Both the grid spot and thesnoot are used with strobes ratherthan hot lights. Another great toolfor detail lighting is a set of barndoors. Usually four flat metalblades are used to control thespread of light. Barn doors giveyou more ways to arrange yourlight than either of the other tools,but one thing they cant do is giveyou as tight a spot as the grid orthe snoot.

Of course there are a large num-ber of other tools around thestudiostands, reflector, clamps,spray, clay, and backgrounds, forstarters. But in order to use thesetools you have to have a placewhere you can control the light andthat would be your studio! I hopeIve given you some ideas for howto start or improve one.

John Siskin is a commercial and fine-artphotographer specializing in productimages and portraiture, as well as macroand architectural photography. He hastaught photography for more than20 years. He currently teachesblack-and-white photography at LosAngeles Mission College. His studiois in Reseda, CA, and his Web site iswww.siskinphoto.com.

Figure 14. Softboxes create smooth reflectionsand more control than umbrellas.

Figure 13. Several types of lighting umbrellas.

Figure 15. Lightpanels. The author made thesehimself to save money.

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