Friday, January 8, 2010

With a canon 40D, 135 mm lenses, backdrop stand, and a flash 430 EX , what else I need for a portrait studio?

I'm interesting in taking portrait pictures on location, but my budget is low, what else would I need to get to start shooting?With a canon 40D, 135 mm lenses, backdrop stand, and a flash 430 EX , what else I need for a portrait studio?
Your question really references two different kinds of shooting: A) in a studio and B) on location.





For a studio situation, you need a location with neutral colored walls, high ceilings (10 feet or taller), and sufficient room to move back and forth and setup your backdrops. While you can do some shooting with your 430 EX flash on camera, you would be better served with it off camera and actually even better served with studio monolights and a flash meter to check exposure.





On location, you need some way to power your monolights if there's no electric outlet handy. And you don't necessarily need the backgrounds--you're using the location to do the shooting (hence, the term ';on location.';)





What you may be asking about is more of a ';portable studio,'; one that you can pack up and set up in another location. In which case, you need the camera (you've got it), sets of lenses (you might need more lenses for a full-length shot), a backup body (maybe later when you have more money or use a 35mm film SLR), your backdrop, and your lighting gear (and one on-camera flash isn't enough).





If your budget is low, what I suggest is that you look at hot lamps/cool lamps. Essentially, these are non-flash continuous lighting units. Hot lamps use incandescent bulbs and get warm. Cool lamps use those new spiral fluorescent bulbs that have been adjusted for a good color balance. In either case, you'll need to custom white balance. Two such lamps (the lamps might have 4 to 8 bulbs in them) should be enough for a studio situation using continuous lighting.





A single monolight, used properly with light modifiers, like an umbrella and a reflector, can produce good results. I would look at a low-power alien bee: http://www.alienbees.com





My personal choice: a monolight over continuous lighting. I would suggest an alien bees monolight, a shoot through umbrella for a light modifier, a reflector (you can use a large piece of white foamcore), and an inexpensive used flash meter (see eBay for used, inexpensive flash meters).With a canon 40D, 135 mm lenses, backdrop stand, and a flash 430 EX , what else I need for a portrait studio?
you need a shorter Telephoto lens, the 135 is too flattening in perspective (the minimum focus and object magnification are too extreme for portraiture, it will behave more like a 200mm on your 40D) the good news is that an ideal lens is the cheapest in the canon range, the EF 50mm f1.8, works out at an 80mm equivalent on your camera.





A second flash head with a slave facility would be useful to place behind the subject. If you get a canon 580 MkII you can slave your exsisting 430 gun off of it with full TTL.





However even a cheap manually adjustable flash head with either a slave function built in, or atached to a minicell slave would be a bonus.
Some way of getting your flash off camera.


Possibly a second or third light.


A big enough area to use a 135mm lens on a crop frame camera (40D).


Alot of creativity and some good old fashioned practice (stuffed animals or pets for starters).
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