Here is a DIY just the way we like it: 3 uses in one, easy to build, light weight and dirt cheap.
Tiffany Angeles shares a nice DIY she uses in her photography studio. It is a huge 4×8 reflector made from a 4×8 polystyrene insulation sheet. This is probably the biggest easy-off reflector you can find.
It's been a long time since we had a good green screen tutorial here on DIYP, and Lars Lindstrom over at The Slanted Lens just came up with a pretty sweet tutorial on how to build a DIY green screen (also known as Chroma Key).
Aside the awesome car defying video, they also shared a few tips with the blog about lighting and shooting against a chroma key - DIY or not. More after the jump. Click to continue ›
One of the easy ways to get interesting backdrop (at least for small objects) is to use textured papers. They come in small enough packaging to be comfortable to handle and the texture allows for some interesting play with light.
Photographer Mo Bius shared a test shoot with such papers as a photography exercise. I think the results are interesting. (Note that the actual tea pot is flagged from the strobe in all the setups and is lit separately in the final picture) Click to continue ›
Laya Gerlock was in need of a backdrop for a Senior portrait shoot. As it just so happened to be it was his girlfriend that he was shooting so it was all the more important.
Instead if going with a store bought backdrop or even with the heavy DIY muslin backdrop, he opted for a thinner, smaller fabric which fit the smaller scale of the shoot. The total cost: $3.
Here is Laya's pointers on making one for yourself: Click to continue ›
One of the cooler ways to create a clean looking video is to shoot it against a white background (if you don't believe me check out our steel wool light painting tutorial).
It only took about $100 and an afternoon to build the studio
We got a ton of mails asking how we built this setup, so here is the breakdown:
If you own one of them 90's film cameras and stopped using it because digital is so hip right now, you're gonna dust it off once you're done reading this tutorial.
In this tutorial photographer Richard Hill is going to explain how to convert your old film camera combined with a strobe into a background generator (which pros also like to call Cookie Projector or a gobo projector).
We featured a strobe based background generator before, which was based on a box and Fresnel lenses. This time around the shades can be way more delicate. Here comes Richard: Click to continue ›
Interesting subjects make for great photographs, so are interesting backgrounds. Photographer Karl Zemlin has a great DIY for projecting strobe light to create interesting backgrounds. (He also has a nifty DIY section on his site)
All you would need is a box, a few Fresnel lenses and some textured glass. The main idea is that you could get the texture of the glass projected on a seamless white (or any other smooth) background.
What makes this design really rock is the little tripod socket at the bottom, so you can simply place this behind your subject on a light stand and have a symmetrical background. Click to continue ›
Now, here is a question, what do you do with all your seamless backdrops while they are not in use?
Store them of course. Savage has a nice sponge system for storing backdrops, the right way - standing up.
Why do you want to store them standing up? Because if you store seamless paper lying down you will get rippled paper. The weight of the paper sets on the bottom part of the paper and presses it against the floor. While this does not crease the paper, it reshapes it into an oval, and when rolled out it will show ripples. not that good.
So, how about that Savage system again? Well, to store a seamless upright, you'll need a wall as high at least as the length of the paper - 3 meters. While this is not rare in studios it is kinda rare in home studios. Click to continue ›
The following post about 3 ways to DIY your Chroma Key was made by Ben Eadie of DVRebelGear.com.
There are several ways to get a decent chroma background for a photo for the DIYer and the results are just as good as any pro system I have encountered. We will cover 3 solutions I have used with great success and all cost less than $15. You can use a green sheet, you can paint a wall and you can make a pop out chroma key like a pop out reflector. I use green for my key but you can also use blue if you choose. Click to continue ›
UPDATE: Looks like Kurbster droped out of flickr taking the very excellent set of strobist studio with him. I am going to leave the post here as the text still has value, although the images were soooooo much better to understand the concept from.
Just spent some good amount of time over at Kurbster photo stream. Seems like he completely nailed the whole, turn-a-room-into-a-strobist-studio thing.
Kurbster challenged Home Depot classic departments and generously turned some cheap and ordinary items into studio elements.
I'm gonna go over some of the challenges that Kurbster so elegantly solved.
