Some advice for a basic studio lighting kit please.

[Keith]

I've been attempting to do some product shots for the guys I work for for their website. This is definitely not my field of expertise and so far I've just been bouncing a flash off the roof with the items set up in front of a makeshift neutral white back drop ... which they had kicking around for some reason.

Shadows and reflections are a problem and I've told them if they want better results I'll need some real lighting with a trigger and remote strobes with diffusers for the D700. I've looked on Ebay and noted that a cheap basic kit is not too much money ... would something like this get me by.

Some advice here would be very helpful as they have a lot of stuff to photograph and the results I'm getting are OK but I would like to be a little more professional about this.

This is the sort of stuff I'm photographing:

 

[nlubis]

Keith,

This was something I did as a favor.
What I had to work with were big white background, 3 flash, 2 umbrellas (reflecting back to subject - silver.)
Two of the flash was on one side and the umbrella was a 60in/152 cm in diameter.
The other flash on the other side to (try) balance out any unwanted shadow.
All in manual and triggered by radio.
Hope this helps.

 

[Keith]

Thanks nlubis ... that's a great image. I just spotted it in the gallery. 🙂

 

[Frank Petronio]

That's not bad for claiming not to know what you're doing....

My two cents is to not get strobes, at least not at first since you don't need them. I would get traditional "hot" quartz halogen lights from a good quality manufacturer. I would not get into LEDs or any funky alternatives either.

Constant lighting will allow you to "see the light" far better than guessing and testing with strobes. Even professional strobe heads with modeling lamps are an approximation, and what happens is that you fall into the strobe mindset where what you see is NOT what you get, so you end up spending more time futzing instead of actually looking at what you are photographing and figuring out what the best lighting is.

With modern high ISO digital you can be shooting lower wattage, cooler bulbs at ISO 400-800 and do quite a correction in your RAW processing and still get wonderful page-sized repro images. I don't use anything more than 250 watt lamps anymore, I can shoot table top off a tripod at 1/15 @ f/8 @ ISO 400 and bang out 10x more and better practical quality catalog photos than I did back when I used to use thousands of dollars of strobe and 4x5 film.

So what works? I don't know which brands are available to you down under but in the States I use Lowel Lights, a good quality, simple line of lights that are moderately expensive... they are light and compact, I have a travel lighting kit that fits into a rolling case. You can go higher end with heavier Matthews or Arriflex "movie" gear or as low-end as construction lighting from a hardware store.

Mr Lowel wrote a darn good general purpose book on lighting, see http://www.lowel.com and http://www.lowel.com/book.html

If you need further justification, look at the price differential between professional halogen and similar quality strobe (or HMI, LED, etc.) lighting.

Generally you want to work with one light and only add additional sources when you have a good reason, like illuminating a background or creating a highlight to separate the subject from the background. Personally I use broad flood lights with umbrellas, black and white foamcore boards, mirrors, and a special kind of matte black tinfoil from Roscoe that can be shaped and formed to control the spread of light even from a broad source.

Most people think they needs spots and fresnels and fancier things but that's too taxing for my feeble mind. I prefer to forget all the bogus things we did in the 80s and 90s with strobes, soft boxes, grids, shoots, and all of that. And whatever I do, avoid all that Joe McNally-Strobist BS that makes lighting into some Voodoo dance with Pocket Wizards, TTL flashes, etc. That's just a bunch of malarky for gear heads, not photographers. I swear those guys look for any excuse to muck up a good picture by adding flash to it.

Strobes have their place. If you have to do a group portraits then you need the power to stop action and achieve a wide depth of field. If you shoot large format studio then you may need the power if you want to stop the lens down. But with more and more situations using modern cameras at higher than base ISO... I no longer see the need.

If you want some inspiration, I don't show or market studio work anymore but this guy in sunny Italy is a master of classic one-light lighting. He often uses his window instead of artificial light, and he paints his own backgrounds to achieve a fade from light to dark on the surface rather than from lighting. I dare say he could teach a few of the masters a thing or two....

http://www.christopherbroadbent.pro

You're in a sunny place, why not open a window, move the dining table around to find the best spot? ;-p

 

[gavinlg]

The Elinchrom d-lite 4it kit is fairly cheap at the moment and has everything you need Keith. That is what I have and its a really good piece of gear. I would be using 2 umbrellas either side of the bike on a 45 degree angle and pointing about 60 degrees down toward the gear. A third light on the backdrop adds some depth, but you could get away with just 1 umbrella overhead and 1 on the backdrop. The bigger the diffuser, the softer and more spread the light will be.

 

[Snowbuzz]

Wow, that's the best, to-the-point lighting synopsis I've read, Frank P!!

I bought fresnels some months ago to recreate some of that George Hurrell magic with the 8x10. I'm doing a good job of melting people is all, however. Sorry to derail the thread. Btw, that product shot looks very good even now, Keith.

 

[bobbyrab]

I would echo pretty much what's been said by both Frank and Gavin. I recently bought a whole elinchrom system at a bargain from eBay, three heads, four softboxes stands booms etc. The advantage with Elinchrom is if you do ever venture into softboxes, their's seem to be particularly well designed for putting up and taking down easily, much better than the Bowens I had previously .
Like Frank I often use just the modelling lights, which are 250 watts, the tungsten light also has a different quality to it, so you have more options including mixing strobe and tungsten. All Elinchroms light attachments are designed to work with the heat generated by a 250 watt bulb.
I'm considering buying the d-light 1 head as well, quite usefull as a strobe as it has a much lower output than the bigger heads, useful if you want to work with strobe at wider apertures, very cheap as well, but the maximum modelling bulb might be 100 watts on that, not sure on that one.

 

[rwintle]

Or, just to throw in another opinion/option, maybe you can stick with the one Speedlight you have. That photo of the wheels looks pretty good to me, although I do find the light falloff to the right a bit distracting (i.e., I would like more even lighting across). If the client's happy though, forget what I said.

I am certainly no expert at this but I have done a fair bit of small-item "product" photography for school raffles and the like. Always much smaller items than those wheels - small items being easier to light of course. Fiddling with various constant light sources and such has always brought me back to the basic setup of one flash bounced into an overhead reflector though.

- seamless white paper background (which you have)
- large sheets of foamcore left and right as reflectors (or option - leave out one side, letting window light fall in from that direction) - these can easily be taped to flash stands, tripods, poles, chairs, or held by assistants
- one flash on camera bouncing about 45 degrees up into another foamcore sheet, with the end closest to the product tilted up from horizontal - my ghetto approach usually uses a microphone stand to hold this

...and that's it. Seems to give nice even light. I think a similar approach might work nicely for larger objects - the key to this is the reflectors. As long as your one speedlight has enough punch. Studio strobes of course if you are firing a lot of shots and need the recycle time, or your subjects are large enough that your speedlight can't fill the area with light.

That setup above gives you this result, which is quite neutral - maybe too neutral/boring? And of course the reflections in the subject itself are a bit unpleasant, but that will be product-dependent:



Similar setup here - maybe a bit overexposed.



Just my $0.02 worth, which is appropriate since I am a cheapskate when it comes to these things (obviously).

 

[truefriendship]

Keith, what is the typical size of the product you are shooting? And you say there are a LOT of products...how many days of shooting, do you think?

For small products, a light tent is cheap and easy to setup/tear down.

What I've found is that, to make life easier, when you are doing a lot of product shots, a setup that is easy to put up and put away again is big bonus, and helps you get into a rhythm. For small/medium size stuff, you want to be shooting at table top level, or slightly below - saves on your back!
Equipment-wise, you have lots of options. If your pockets are deep, then go for the Paul C Buff Einstein strobes with triggers and softboxes. Expensive, but you'll get 75% to 90% of your money back once you're done and need to sell them. They have an Australian operation too.

If cost is an issue, go for the Yongnuo speedlites (yn-560IIIs, triggers and umbrellas (60" and 43"). 2 on the background for even spread, one key, and a large reflector to fill the shadows.

You'll be operations at around F8 to F11 on the D700 at 1/250th of a sec so ambient light should not be a problem - you just need enough to nail focus. Spend some time/money finding decent light stands/umbrella adapters/ misc hardware.

Hope this helps! 🙂
~Rif

 

[Ranchu]

Put a clear (frosted) shower curtain liner between the strobe and the subject to tame the reflections. The Paul Buff ring flash plus 'moon units' is pretty flexible but made of plastic.

 

[russelljtdyer]

Heat

Heat

Strobes have their place. But... I no longer see the need.

One of the values of strobes is related to working with models. If you will be photographing a model for a couple of hours, continuous lighting will be too hot for her. A model who is sweating or uncomfortable because of the heat from the lights, won't usually perform very well. Strobe lights are a better choice for such situations since they only generate heat when you trigger them and then for less than a second. So the model will be comfortable with strobe lights.

Since you're not photographing people, though, and photographing only objects, continuous lighting will be cheaper to buy and easier to control and understand, as Frank says.

 

[tomchr]

An alternative to a studio light kit is an off-camera flash and a few modifiers (shoot-through umbrella, soft box, reflectors). This is the approach chosen by Strobist for example. His Lighting 101 is a worthwhile read.

With studio lights you really get what you pay for. It's easy to blow $1k on just a pair of heads and a power pack. An old flash with a full manual mode can be had for $50. Then you add a stand, sync cable, umbrella and a few other sundry items and you're going for $100~150. This provides almost as much flexibility as a studio kit, though, obviously not the same massive amounts of light.

~Tom

 

[segedi]

I second the use of foam core for reflectors. I think you are 90% there! but you need to kick some light back and reflectors would help immensely.

 

[hepcat]

Keith, sorry I didn't see this thread when it was fresh. Did you ever decide what you're going to do about lighting? The new, cordless variable output lights are really nice, but for a fraction of what they cost, you can pick up an old corded studio set, usually with several heads and modifiers and built-in modeling lights. If you're lucky you may even get light stands in the deal,

Twenty years ago, I bought a Norman corded studio flash setup for about USD $500. They're flash units with modeling lights. I have four heads with mine, and they have two power settings. I keep a 2'x3' soft box diffuser on the main head and a 28" (or so) beauty ring on the #2 head for nice, even, soft lighting.

I'm still using that setup, and I've only replaced the logic board once (immediately after I bought the setup, it was damaged when I bought it) and a couple of bulbs. That old Norman setup is still going strong. They can really be had for a song today. Modifiers are cheap, and they can put out an amazing amount of light. You can probably find one locally from a studio that went under if you ask around a little... there's a lot of them sitting in basements and warehouses unused just waiting to be snatched up.

I do a LOT of bicycles and bike parts in my studio too, as well as photo gear and odds and ends for folks and for stuff that I sell, and the old Normans just keep on going.

Here's a small sample of what they can do:


PA147426 by chief1120, on Flickr


PA147457 by chief1120, on Flickr


L1008463 by chief1120, on Flickr


P6094025 by chief1120, on Flickr