Build your own photo studio
Convert a spare room into a studio so you can shoot subjects without ever leaving the house
We may be seeing light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, but months of enforced lockdown, during long periods of which going outside was against the rules, has given photographers lots of challenges when confined between our own four walls. Just what do you shoot?
It’s forced us to think creatively, and while many photographers have dabbled with a Speedlight, we went one further and set up our own home studio in a spare room – after all, we weren’t going to be receiving overnight guests for quite some time…
There’s a little more to it than moving the bedroom furniture out and lighting kit in, though. For full control over your light levels you need to make the room as dark as possible so that the only illumination comes from your studio lights, so you might need to install some blackout blinds.
As well as a pair of home studio lights (available from around £200/$200), you’ll also need a backdrop. Coming as rolls of hard-wearing paper or vinyl, the backdrop not only gives you a clean surface to shoot against, hiding light switches and the flock wallpaper, but is the biggest influence on the mood of shots.
A white or pure black backdrop is ideal, but you can try a range of colours for something a bit more vibrant. Textured backdrops can add extra interest, while printed scenes can depict everything from forest glades to grimy city backstreets – all without leaving the comfort of your own home.
Backdrops
The splayed legs of traditional backdrop supports eat up valuable studio space. We used a Magna-fix kit (£125/$195; www.clickprops.co.uk), which has steel plates that screw into the wall – the backdrop is then affixed with magnets, so it hangs nice and flush to the wall.
Which modifiers?
White ‘shoot-through’ brollies go in front of a light, creating a diffused light source, while ‘reflector’ brollies aim away from subjects and bounce the light back. Softboxes offer the best of both – the shiny inner surface directs light through a diffused front panel, while reducing light spill for greater control.
Settings & adjustment
Set a mid-range aperture for a good depth of field, and a low ISO, such as ISO100, for best image quality. Then adjust the power of the lights for a good exposure. You can alternatively move the lights further away from the subject, but in a small space this may not be possible. The shutter speed has minimal effect; it’s the short but intense burst of flash that freezes your subject.
Twin flash head set
Shooting in a small space means you don’t need super-powerful lights; our budget Interfit set are rated at 150Ws – plenty for our 3x4m room. More important is the ability to turn down the lights sufficiently to avoid blasting your studio setup with too much light.
Light triggering
The usual way to trigger lights is via a cable from your Nikon’s flash sync socket to one of the flash heads, but a wireless trigger keeps cramped studios clutter-free. The second head is triggered by setting ‘cell’ mode; a light-sensitive receptor detects the first flash firing, instantly firing the second.
Key & fill setup
The power of each head is set separately. Our ‘key’ light was to our subject’s right at 1/2 power, to provide the main illumination, the ‘fill’ light was angled slightly behind them and to their left to help separate them from the background at 1/4 power, to ‘fill’ and soften shadows cast by the key light.