CCericola
Been spending a lot of time on here!
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2011
- Messages
- 1,922
- Reaction score
- 567
- Location
- Washington
- Website
- www.csjstudios.com
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
Ok. I will admit this. When I was working as a product designer I worked at the Picture People over the Christmas holiday to make extra spending money as all of our extra cash was going to buy our house.
It was 2007. We used a 20D as the location had just switched from film (Mamiya 645) to digital. The lights were Photogenic. There was a main light, fill light and hair light. The main was a 60" octagon softbox, fill was a slightly smaller rectangle softbox, the hair light was a standard size hair light softbox strip. They were all Westcott. To trigger the lights we used radio triggers. I don't remember the brand or model.
The lights were set daily to flat, boring lighting. They were adjusted so we could shoot at F8 at 1/250th. The fill and main were set at the same output and the hair light was at 1/4 of that.
The camera stands were taken away along with the mamiyas. The camera was hand held and the lights were mounted on a rail system. The backgrounds are vinyl and I still remember the smell of the cleaner as they had to be washed every night.
It sounds like you only want to emulate their shooting style not their business model. Their model is ok but will take a bigger investment than you have. They are not going out of business. Yes, they have downsized ( the one I worked at is gone) but there are still 6 all within 20 miles of each other here in NJ. They are in the malls and are always packed.
It was an ok job. The best part was I didn't NEED the job so I pretty much did what I liked. The manager would try to talk to me and I would just stare and her and say "I don't care" I think I drove her crazy. Then I got a huge, unexpected bonus from my day job and I came in to give her 1 week notice. She gave me a hard time so I looked at her and said "fine! no notice! I'm leaving now! bye!" Then the next month they were closed. I like to think it was because of me as I had the highest sales . I know it's not true but it's fun to think that
You want to shoot in that style, get 3 strobes, three soft boxes, a background and a camera. You don't NEED a radio trigger. You can use a sync chord. They usually come with the lights. Make sure the lights have a built in slave so when you trigger the main light with the sync chord it sets off the other two.
Its not not rocket science. I think all the cookie cutter places use the same basic set up.
It was 2007. We used a 20D as the location had just switched from film (Mamiya 645) to digital. The lights were Photogenic. There was a main light, fill light and hair light. The main was a 60" octagon softbox, fill was a slightly smaller rectangle softbox, the hair light was a standard size hair light softbox strip. They were all Westcott. To trigger the lights we used radio triggers. I don't remember the brand or model.
The lights were set daily to flat, boring lighting. They were adjusted so we could shoot at F8 at 1/250th. The fill and main were set at the same output and the hair light was at 1/4 of that.
The camera stands were taken away along with the mamiyas. The camera was hand held and the lights were mounted on a rail system. The backgrounds are vinyl and I still remember the smell of the cleaner as they had to be washed every night.
It sounds like you only want to emulate their shooting style not their business model. Their model is ok but will take a bigger investment than you have. They are not going out of business. Yes, they have downsized ( the one I worked at is gone) but there are still 6 all within 20 miles of each other here in NJ. They are in the malls and are always packed.
It was an ok job. The best part was I didn't NEED the job so I pretty much did what I liked. The manager would try to talk to me and I would just stare and her and say "I don't care" I think I drove her crazy. Then I got a huge, unexpected bonus from my day job and I came in to give her 1 week notice. She gave me a hard time so I looked at her and said "fine! no notice! I'm leaving now! bye!" Then the next month they were closed. I like to think it was because of me as I had the highest sales . I know it's not true but it's fun to think that
You want to shoot in that style, get 3 strobes, three soft boxes, a background and a camera. You don't NEED a radio trigger. You can use a sync chord. They usually come with the lights. Make sure the lights have a built in slave so when you trigger the main light with the sync chord it sets off the other two.
Its not not rocket science. I think all the cookie cutter places use the same basic set up.