Shoestring studio

SET UP AT HOME WITH A TWO-FLASHGUN STUDIO, AND GET READY TO CREATE STUNNING FAMILY PHOTOS

1 Garden bag softbox

Our key light here is a secondhand Godox flashgun, bought for £30 on ebay. We’ve crafted a softbox using an old garden waste bag, with the front covered in a white bin liner bag. There is no TTL mode on this model of flash, only manual power, but that’s all we need. We set it to 1/4 power.

2 Old umbrella

Our fill light here is a secondhand Yongnuo flashgun (costing £40 on ebay), fired into an old umbrella covered in tin foil and bin liners. It’s placed directly above the subject and set to 1/8 power to provide a gentle fill light. As the shoestring budget couldn’t stretch to a light stand, we tied it to the ceiling.

3 Green screen

Green screens – or chroma key screens as they’re often called – can be removed or changed with ease in Photoshop or Affinity Photo. Green is far from any skin colour, which makes it easy to cut out or isolate from people. Any creases can be a headache to sort out later, so keep the backdrop sheet as taut as possible.

4 Exposure settings

Our camera is set to Manual exposure mode, with a 1/200 sec shutter speed, an f/5.6 aperture and ISO100. This is a good starting exposure for studio portraiture – especially if you’re in a fairly tight spot like our garage setup here – as the wide aperture will ensure there’s a good amount of separation with the backdrop.

5 Flash trigger

We need a means of triggering our two off-camera flashguns. A cheap wireless flash trigger can be purchased for as little as £20, but if the budget won’t stretch to this, you can also use your Nikon’s pop-up flash and set the flashguns to optical trigger mode, so they fire upon detecting the flash.

6 The subject

This is a great project to try with kids. Colourful clothes, toys and props can help to add character to the shots, as well as keep the kids interested. Of course, if you factor in the cost of a professional portrait shoot, the savings from doing it yourself instead could run into hundreds of pounds.