If you are mounting your lights indoors you are safe, but what if you are outside in the blowing wind?
This is not the first time that two shooting hobbies meet. Last time I talked about weapons photography cases and rifle camera straps. This time Christian Hedegaard has a great idea to prevent your light stand from blowing in the wind. The materials? Right, from the gunshop. Here is Christian's story:
Just Fab has come up with a great PVC contraption she calls the Ghetto Studio. It's a great and portable setup that takes great Glamuor shots.
I asked Just Fab to share her plans and setup and she kindly agreed. Below you will find the instructions to build such setup. Total cost is less then 40$.
We have showed a PVC setup before, but it was very big. This PVC setup can be used both indoor and outdoor. The bottom and top are tiltable, covered with Ripstop nylon. Bottom hasa car windshield screen as a reflector. The strobe goes behind the topscrim and bounces off the bottom to reflect up. Instant one light setupto do butterfly lighting. I did have to glue some of the piecestogether to keep it from falling over in the wind, but it's modular andtears down. The bottom screen tilts about 1/16 the way down, the top istilts in the middle. I can reverse those is need be. You simply shootin between the two.
Here is an image taken with this setup. Look for shadows under the eyes. Found any? No!
Sweetness by Just Fab
The next following images show the materials you need to create this Ghetto Studio, as well as assembly needed.
A softbox is a studio thingy that professional photographers use on their studios. Why? for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, softboxes create a smoother light - less hotspots (yea - those are the bright, burnt our noses in your photos), anther is smoother shadows. Most professional models are shot with softboxes to get that glamorous, look. Softboxes are also great for macro shots - they produce even diffused light.
The only trouble starts when you head down the road to the store and want to get one of them nice wonders. They usually cost something like a small county side house. In this article I will demonstrate how to build a homemade studio softbox for just a few $$. Click to continue ›
Pedro G. Dias came up with a way to make one sturdy light box. This article will tell the Story of The Making of the Lightbox.
So This item is all about how information traverses the web, and how by mere coincidence, Pedro got to know about this light box from a fried who got it from a web site, and hoe finally I got the mail that tells me to post the story... here is how it goes:
I've been drooling for a lightbox for a long time now, especially with winter coming, and sun going hide&seek up here in Norway. A good friend of mine recommended a website where a very nice guy had made a project out of it, so I thought I'd try it out for myself, and here are some of the highlights of that feat. A big cheers to the author of this page for letting me know how easy this is to do. The concept and cudos for this goes to him. Click to continue ›
I was inspired to do this project after seeing the PVC light tent posted on the MAKE blog. This light tent uses a cardboard box and some white material (Tyvek) and allows you to take reasonable photos of products such as bottles, watches, jewelry, small objects, etc. There is lot's of room for improvement but for the sake of 15 minutes I hope you will agree it's pretty good :) Click to continue ›
The following article about how to build a homemade reflector stand was contributed by Brian Zimmerman. You will want to use a reflector if you only have one light source, or in other cases where you want to eliminate shadows from a dark place and don't have a flash to place there. The trick is how to place this reflector in the most effective way. Click to continue ›
In The following article, Brian will demonstrate how to build a DIY backdrop stand. The stand, along with matching backdrop will help to create a controlled environment, with good subject/background separation. The cost is very low, just some PVC pipes, muslin and two really good hands. Oh, and a wife to agree to place this in the leaving room. Click to continue ›
A stand made of 3/4" PVC to hold a diffusion panel made of ripstop nylon that slides up and down and tilts. Sliding joint is made of a "Slip-Tee" as described in the Tinker Tubes document at "http://www.software-cinema.com/tinkertubes/tt-book.pdf". Total cost, including 500W light stand, nylon and PVC parts is about $50. I also got a similar quartz-halogen 250W clip-on light for about $15 that I hung above to add some highlights to the hair.
A 250W light was hung above and slightly to the right and behind the subject to add some highlights to the hair. Click to continue ›
In the following article, Brian Zimmerman will demonstrate the construction of a soft light panel frame. As Brian will illustrate, the soft light panel frame can be used to reduce the harshness of light, and to crate soft eye pleasing picture. THe soft light panel can be used to take portrait pictures, or still life picture. The construction is not easy, but very rewarding.
Enjoy your build.
In this article Aron Brand will demonstrate how, using homemade and accessible materials, you can improve the light quality of a simple slave flash, and get a natural and soft light. This sort of light is good for jewelry photography, shooting items for eBay and portraits. Note the picture at the end of this article, not only showing softer shadows, but also pops the look of the metal, giving it more polished, expensive look. Similar methods to obtain the same effect can be a light tent, of a flash mounted softbox. Good luck. Click to continue ›
