Setting up a Home Studio
The ‘ Basics of Photography’ series has by and large covered almost all the essential fundamentals of photography over the last several articles. Now, it is time to put some of the theories explained to practice. The best way to start this exercise is in a photo studio. Why in a studio, you may ask? That is because working in a studio is the best way to learn how to ‘ light’ in the true sense of the word, since the lighting can be manipulated in any possible manner you please. Hence, studio environs are the best location to master the “photo” part of photography. Having a studio at home has several advantages. You can do things at your own pace, time is not wasted on transit, you will not get curtailed due to rain and sun, etc. Contrary to what you think, a small home studio will not cost much and more importantly will not occupy a great deal of the most important resource in a home viz. space. In fact, the idea of this article is to give you an economical solution to create a studio suitable for table top products though it can be extended to other types of photography. So, here are the elements that go in to setting up a home studio:
Photo Table and Accessories:
The most important item you need for a home studio is a table to keep the products that need to be photographer. However, any conventional table won’t do the job. You need what are called ‘ Photo Tables’. These are also known as ‘ Light Tables’ or ‘ Still life tables’. These are meant for placing the products for photography and also for lighting them appropriately. A photo table looks like a chair with the seat removed! It allows a seamless backdrop like a laminate to be placed on top. You can also substitute the laminate with a sheet of translucent material in case you want to light your product from behind ( glassware, for example). Readymade photo tables ( Picture 1) are available in the market. These cost several thousands of rupees and while
you can buy these if you can afford, it is quite easy to make one. I am showing (elsewhere in this article) one design which was successfully fabricated with plywood and some screws. The best part is that it can be dismantled (and hidden from your spouse ) when not in use.
Laminate: This is the decorative sheet that is stuck on top of most home and office tables. These are available in several colours and textures. The most useful ones are the white ones and those with a wood grain finish. Usually the laminate is very thin and will bend if you keep heavy articles. If you get into a situation like this, keep a piece of plywood on top of the photo table underneath the laminate.
Translucent sheet: Transparent and translucent products like glassware, crystal are best lit from behind. For this you need to keep a translucent sheet on the photo table and keep the light sources beneath or behind this sheet. The best translucent sheet is made of matt Perspex which unfortunately is not easily available. In case you cannot get a Perspex sheet you can buy a 2mm thick acrylic sheet as a substitute. However, these sheets reflect a lot and hence can create problems. To avoid these, keep a tracing paper on top of the acrylic sheet. The matt surface of the tracing sheet will eliminate reflections while preserving translucency.
Clamps: Popularly known as ‘C’ clamps since they look like the letter ‘C’, these will help you firmly hold (or clamp) the laminate or the Perspex/ acrylic
sheet to the photo table. You can buy laminates, translucent sheet, and clamps from hardware shops.
Lights: Once you have the light table you need to get the lights organised. There are two types of lights available – continuous and flash. The latter are also known as strobes. Let us look at these in more detail. Presently, continuous lights use different technologies such as CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp/Light), Halogen, LED, etc. Each has its plus and minus points. By far the best for a home studio are the CFLs ( Picture 2). These are cool ( low temperature) to operate, easily available and won’t run your electricity bill through the roof. They also operate at a colour temperature of 6500K (approximately). Most D-SLRs can set the WB fairly accurately even in Auto WB mode for this colour temperature. Most importantly they are very economical to buy as well as operate and hence are ideal for a home studio. You can buy a low cost, multi-position (or a goose neck) table lamp ( Picture 3) from electric shops and fit a CFL to it. The CFL being a continuous source allows you to check the shadows and highlights very closely. This is very useful especially if you are getting started with table top photography. The disadvantage is that even when you are using two lights the total light output is quite low and you will be forced to use a slow shutter speed. Thus, a tripod is a must. Also, due to the slow shutter speeds, you will not be able to freeze action. This precludes high speed photography (capturing splashes, for example). There are also few or no light modifiers available for continuous lights although you can improvise easily. If you are going this route just make sure that you also have two small stools/tables to keep the lamps. Overall this is the cheapest solution for lights! An alternate light source is the electronic flash. For a home studio, large mains operated studio strobes are an overkill. You can use portable electronic
flashes; the type that you mount on your camera hot shoe. These flashes are low cost, battery operated and powerful enough. They are excellent for freezing action and since they run on batteries you can move them around easily without tangling up the power cords. Also, you can use a high shutter speed (up to X Sync) and thus avoid a tripod although this is not recommended. A huge variety of light modifiers are available for portable flashes these days. You have the choice of buying dedicated flashes that are manufactured by your camera manufacturer or 3rd party flashes that just operate as manual flashes. The former offers a very high degree of automation, remote control and will integrate with your D-SLR seamlessly. The downside is that they are very expensive. So, unless you want to spend a huge amount of money ( as you would require two flashes at least), I suggest you go for the latter. Make sure, and this is an absolute must, that these manual flashes have an output power level that can be varied. Without this feature, they are useless for table top photography. They should also have a built- in optical trigger. With this, you can trigger flashes wirelessly at no extra cost with the help of the built- in flash of your D-SLR. In case you have old flashes with you that don’t have an optical trigger you can buy an add- on trigger. However, never mount a 3rd party flash on the hot shoe of your camera. ( Please see ‘ Basics of Photography”, Smart Photography, April 2012 issue for an exhaustive article on this topic). You will need some way to position the strobes properly. This is best done with light stands. So, purchase a couple of light stands meant for studio strobes. These are inexpensive and also foldable ( for easy storage). You will however, need a small adapter called an umbrella bracket ( Picture 4) to mount the flashes on a light stand. You can also get an adapter to mount an umbrella bracket on tripods, but tripods are a lot more expensive than light stands and hence these adapters are useful only if you have a few spare tripods.
Light modifiers: The raw light out from a portable flash can and sometimes may need to be modified. This is done with the help of light modifiers. Let us see what these are and what they do.
Diffusers: The light given out by a portable flash is very harsh due to its small size. Hence, it is very important to use a diffuser. This will give softer and hence more pleasing shadows. The most popular diffusers are umbrellas and softboxes ( Pictures 4, 5 and 6). You can also make a diffuser very easily. Take a wooden frame and cover it with diffusing material – and voila, you have a diffuser. Materials that can be used for this purpose are – butter paper, tracing paper, silk cloth, thin bed sheets, shower curtains, etc. There is one precaution that you need to take though. The colour of the light through the diffuser will get modified if the diffusing material is coloured. Hence, make sure that the colour of the diffuser is neutral.
Other light modifiers: Some of the other light modifiers include snoots,
grids, barn doors, etc. Please note that studio strobes also have similar accessories available. However, these will not fit portable flashes. Please make sure that you buy the right ones. (Please see ‘ Basics of Photography’,
Smart Photography, April2012 issue for a complete list of these modifiers). There are two more accessories that are needed for lighting. These are reflectors and gobos.
Reflectors: Parts of the subject that are not exposed to a light source will be in shadow and will appear dark. Due to this, the detail in this area will not be clear and will also not be attractive to look at. You can brighten this part by using a fill light or by using a reflector. While you can buy purpose-built reflectors, you can make some for next to nothing. Among the best, very low cost and easily available reflectors are sheets of thin Styrofoam boards. These give nice diffused reflections. In fact any white matt surface will give you a diffused reflection. If you want a somewhat more concentrated (opposite of diffused) light -- called specular light -- then an aluminum foil that is used to wrap food products is ideal. First, crumple a piece of foil and then flatten it out (Picture 7). This will crinkle the foil and will make it an excellent reflector. You can fix one of these on one side of the Styrofoam sheet. With this you will have two types of reflectors in one piece; diffused and specular, one on each side. As with the diffusers, the colour of the light bouncing from a reflector will assume the colour of the reflector. Many photographers also use coloured reflectors, especially golden ones for portrait photography, to give a slight warm tone to the subject.
Gobos: This is a short form for “go in between” ( Picture 8) as they are put in between the light source and the subject. These are also popularly known as “cutters”. Gobos create a local block to the light falling on a particular area of the subject and hence prevent (among other things) bright spots that could occur when light shines from a reflective surface. You can make gobos from black non-reflective chart paper by cutting rectangular strips of suitable size. They can be held in position by hand between the subject and the light with the help of forceps.
Light tent: A light tent ( Picture 9) is a rectangular box with translucent material on all sides. Some of the sides have openings ( ports) that can be closed or opened by means of zips or Velcro. These ports allow you to photograph the product inside the tent. Since all the sides are made of translucent material, the light from even a simple table lamp will get diffused nicely and will fall around the subject causing a very soft shadow. These are foldable and hence portable. They can be set up in minutes. Light tents are not very expensive (they cost a few thousand rupees at the most) and are a worthwhile accessory to have if you are interested in table top photography. They are particularly useful if you want to take photographs ( with the same lighting) of various similar-sized items, very quickly. Such a need may arise, for example, when you want to take photographs for a product catalogue ( like figurines, toys, etc.). Once you set up the tent, you can take a number of photographs rapidly with the same consistent lighting which is needed for a product catalog. The only disadvantage is that light tents are of fixed size and this puts a limit on the size of the product that you can keep inside. However, a light tent is not a must. You can achieve a similar effect with diffusers but the setup will be more cumbersome to manage. If you are a DIY ( Do It Yourself ) type of a person, you can also make one quite easily.
Miscellaneous Items: A studio will have an endless list of items. However, many of them are simple and are in fact commonly used household items. A partial list ( Picture 10) – a pair of scissors, a hobbyist’s cutting knife, cello tape with dispenser, forceps, tack, paper binding clips, butter / tracing paper, clothes clips, wooden blocks for positioning and propping subjects, laundry bags ( they make excellent diffusers!) etc. None of these are expensive. Nor is there a need to acquire them all at once. As you keep taking photographs in your home studio, you will quickly come to
know what items are needed and you can acquire them progressively. Plus, you can also improvise quite a few things. Believe me, that is fun too! It is however, important to keep all these items together ( in a box) and maintain some discipline in storing them (don’t throw them all over), so that you can locate them as and when required.
Tip: Studio photography needs a lot of help for positioning things, adjusting lights, holding reflectors, diffusers, etc. Consequently, it will be very useful to have a likeminded friend to help you when you are photographing in a studio. Plus, you and your friend can also share the burden of purchases. For example, if you are planning to have two flashes for your studio, maybe you can purchase one flash each to lessen the financial burden.