DIYPhotography.net

I've had it happen when I heard a veteran photog telling another, "This one? You cannot do this one, you don't have the gear".

Now, as the name of the site suggests, this is not what I consider a good answer. A better answer would be a breakdown of the shoot, trying to get some understanding of what is a must for it, what gear is needed and how can we make up for the gear we don't have. Maybe with another piece of gear; maybe in post; and maybe by changing one of the underlying assumptions that we initially had when thinking about the shoot.

Photographer Scott Bourke (flickr) shows this exact king of thinking in his Sportraits session. There is a nice how to video and then some thoughts. I'd love to hear your take on dealing with gear shortage in the comments. Click to continue ›

One of the comments I got when I started the Studio @ Home series was about flooring. I mean not *all* of our pictures are seamless white. Some pictures are taken with the floor and background as part of the picture.

We covered spaces and backgrounds quite a bit but never gave enough attention to that thing under our feet called floor. Here is a neat little way to create instant flooring that looks like hardwood floor, checkers, or almost any other cool pattern.

Most hardware stores in the US hold something called Vinyl Flooring Sheets. Donno how to describe those other that rollable floor.

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I'm gonna talk about Plexi in a moment, but first, Happy Halloween everyone.

OK, Plexi. 

It is very common for a product shot to be built from two symmetrical halves, the product on top and a reflection on the bottom.

I tried taking shoe images like this using a mirror and some glass, but with both I got two reflection - one from the upper surface of the glass and one from the lower surface on the glass. I then tried using durable nylon to get the same effect which was nice, however the reflection image was not sharp.

Then. Came. Plexi.

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The following article is a guest post by Ilya Titov, a photographer and web designer, who also runs a great blog at blog.webboggles.com.

Are you a photographer who needs to take dozens of high quality photographs every day?

Are you a designer who has to process the above? - I am both, and I cheated.

Well, not really, I just optimized the way I go about achieving the target outcome. I dothis by using a home grown illuminated light table (or slope). Read on for full details.

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Two things about backdrops.

1. Studio backdrops are not cheap.  A single color muslin backdrop can cost up to 30$ and the fancy ones with patterns can cost even more.

2.  Backdrops take space. No matter how you look at it, each roll of seamless or fold up fabric take space. It is especially "bad" if you're using seamless paper. I mean those rolls are huge and having just a few of them will get you a 'sad smiley' with your significant other.

The easy solution of course is to use a black backdrop; a white backdrop and some magic to get all the rest. (If you've already gelled flashes till your head popped, skip right to the pattern part).

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Did anybody say obsessed?

OK, I'll admit it. Over the last month or so, I've been obsessing with home studio tweaks - backgrounds and seamless whites in particular. No wonder too. I'm about to enter my own kids place space studio in about a month now.

This setup has been around for over a year on the web. I can't believe it went under the radar. It's cheap, quick to build and kill and best of all it is continuous, so it is also good for video A-LA matrix style.

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How do you take a lovely portrait like this, on a perfect white background? Of course you'll need a beautiful model. But how would you handle the lighting? Just throw about 10000 Watts/Seconds on your seamless white and you're good. 

Or use a single strobe and 5$ worth of white Coroplast. Read on for the full details. 

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On the last post we saw how easy it is to set a "backdrop" for any small object.

In this post, we will continue to explore backdrop solutions, only this time the focus is going to be on full scale backdrops. The type that goes better with taking portraits.

The underlying principles remain the same: once you have a space to shoot at, you will want to remove distractions from the background. Again, you'll want to use a seamless backdrop removing seams in Photoshop is a painful and time consuming process. The standard width for most backdrop, muslin or paper is about 108" (although 53" is a common size as well). This width allows for some freedom in terms of subject placement and subject movement.

As with most simple things in life backdrop creation can be divided into two parts: creating the backdrop and mounting it.

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OK, so you have your space, and ready to take your first shot on your new studio.

One of the first things that you'll need is background. Whether you're doing a product shot or a full portrait, backgrounds play essential role in the final outcome.

A good background will not create distractions from the subject, and will help draw attention to its features.A bad background, on the other hand, can spoil a perfectly good subject and create a cluttered feel that will distract from the subject.

In this post I'll cover backgrounds for small objects and product shots.

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Photographer James Burger walks us through a 108 seconds journey of converting his bedroom into a studio and back. And he does that stop motion, no less. (If you are reading this via RSS, you may want to click the post to see the full vid). 

More after the jump.

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