Want to start a home studio

[mwcfarms]

I would think you wouldnt want a pure white in such a small space even with low watt lights because of reflection and spilling back onto your subject. But I am interested to see what those who know the right answer say.

 

[MLeeK]

I am rather unsure! I have windows on one side of me and an ivory wall on the other, but my backdrop rails pull backdrops across the wall, so in the shooting area it's always a backdrop to the left side... I have never given it much consideration!!!

 

[c.cloudwalker]

As much as we all want tall ceilings, don't let it scare you if it's not possible!

Depending on the type of photography, regular ceiling heights can be just fine but if you're going to be shooting full-body type portraits of 6 footers it can be a pain.

That said, I shot my first commercial portfolio in my basement studio with 8 ft ceilings. For those photos where I wanted the model to stand, I just picked shorter people

Umbrellas are more of a problem, imo, in a small home studio. But if the room is dedicated to that purpose, the walls can be painted matte black or dark gray. Even in my present studio which is large, the walls and just about everything else is painted dark gray.

c.cloudwalker-this is kind of opinion and more of a guess, so I am hoping you can point me straight here...
In a small home studio with lights that aren't a LOT of power, wouldn't you want to go a very light to white neutral to give you the reflective power of the walls to magnify the lights?

Some musicians get very good at controlling feedback and use it very creatively... Personally I find it hard to control light reflections off of white walls, I'd rather have just the light from the strobes (or continuous lights) to deal with so I paint everything dark gray. But there are plenty of people, I think, who shoot in white walled studios.

 

[mwcfarms]

I would just think that in such tight quarters unless your very good about flagging or controlling the spill you would have reflection from your lights rather than a grey wall. I could be totally wrong though. I have white walls and a low ceiling in my basement and I do have a lot of spill but I suck at flagging and am not going any further with studio lighting till i get a proper light meter.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

I am rather unsure! I have windows on one side of me and an ivory wall on the other, but my backdrop rails pull backdrops across the wall, so in the shooting area it's always a backdrop to the left side... I have never given it much consideration!!!

Does that mean you use a mix of natural light and strobes? That would be another way of shooting. I have no windows at all.

 

[MLeeK]

I would just think that in such tight quarters unless your very good about flagging or controlling the spill you would have reflection from your lights rather than a grey wall. I could be totally wrong though. I have white walls and a low ceiling in my basement and I do have a lot of spill but I suck at flagging and am not going any further with studio lighting till i get a proper light meter.

You do have a good point there with the controlling light. I like softboxes and strip boxes that I can control how it feathers on my subjects. I have gotten some bounce off my windows, but I think it's kind of natural to me to just deal with it and adjust-it's always been like that, KWIM? I also know better than to shoot with a background to my left that has strong colors on it or it's going to give me a headache, so that feeds right in to your point.

 

[MLeeK]

I am rather unsure! I have windows on one side of me and an ivory wall on the other, but my backdrop rails pull backdrops across the wall, so in the shooting area it's always a backdrop to the left side... I have never given it much consideration!!!

Does that mean you use a mix of natural light and strobes? That would be another way of shooting. I have no windows at all.

I am using a mixture of the two in my "studio" (and I use that term INCREDIBLY loosely... it's too small by half to be a studio.)
I am thinking more along the lines of the very light walls allowing you to make more use of the lower wattage lights because it's going to be bouncing back from them. However I also see that it can definitely be a problem in controlling the light overall at times-especially with umbrellas and the spill.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

Btw, maybe I'm just anal about it considering the size of my studio but my very first one was small and gave me problems. So I painted it dark and did the same to the next two.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

I would just think that in such tight quarters unless your very good about flagging or controlling the spill you would have reflection from your lights rather than a grey wall. I could be totally wrong though. I have white walls and a low ceiling in my basement and I do have a lot of spill but I suck at flagging and am not going any further with studio lighting till i get a proper light meter.

Spill is why i mentioned tall ceilings, sure we can work around it when we have to but might not best for a "studio".

I bought an L-358 sekonic light meter from BHPHOTO, with the student discount it was $259 new. It works so well its almost scary and I'm enjoying it. I like the instantatinious ambient/flash ratio readings (without popping a few shots) when shooting outside too.

 

[mwcfarms]

That's the same one I'm getting! Can not wait to play!

 

[mwcfarms]

And I'm going from 8 foot ceilings to almost 20 ft in the spring which is very exciting!

 

[gsgary]

As much as we all want tall ceilings, don't let it scare you if it's not possible!

Depending on the type of photography, regular ceiling heights can be just fine but if you're going to be shooting full-body type portraits of 6 footers it can be a pain.

That said, I shot my first commercial portfolio in my basement studio with 8 ft ceilings. For those photos where I wanted the model to stand, I just picked shorter people

Umbrellas are more of a problem, imo, in a small home studio. But if the room is dedicated to that purpose, the walls can be painted matte black or dark gray. Even in my present studio which is large, the walls and just about everything else is painted dark gray.

c.cloudwalker-this is kind of opinion and more of a guess, so I am hoping you can point me straight here...
In a small home studio with lights that aren't a LOT of power, wouldn't you want to go a very light to white neutral to give you the reflective power of the walls to magnify the lights?

No because it is very hard to control the light, i have noticed a big difference shooting in a dark studio and a white studio, in a white studio you get light bouncing all over the place

 

[KmH]

Black is depressing, but minimizing uncontrolled reflections is definately key.

I paint the studio walls a flat (no sheen) medium gray, and the ceiling gets painted flat black.

 

[mwcfarms]

How high are your ceilings that you have painted them black Keith? Just curious. I was already planning on doing a gray on the side and back walls. Would you recommend at all leaving the back wall white rather than using seamless all the time. I still havent decided about that.

 

[Diddy2theJJ]

Hey Photogchick, I live in North Dakota where winter seems like it's here for 9 months out of the year lol. I had a home studio for almost 2 years doing photography part time and working full time, and now I've started to rent some studio space in town so I may be investing in some better lights as well.

What camera and lens setup are you using?

I'm not sure what your entire budget looks like, but I've heard good things about the newest Elinchrom lights. They have a really nice system for setting your strobe power right from the skyport transmitter, or if you have a WiFi network setup they have a new device that allows you to set it up via an iPad or iPhone with the right software. I haven't looked into that side of things but it sounds pretty nice.