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With the new Nikon D7100 digital camera, you would expect to be able to turn your hand to almost anything. This versatile and flexible camera is designed to excel in all areas of photography. So, once it is out of the box, many new owners will be rushing to take portraits and still-life images in studio conditions. obviously, if you can, you should always try to shoot in natural light - particularly if you are shooting portraits. If that isn't feasible, the pop up flash can usually provide the necessary fill-in, or you could use you flash gun, carefully placed and fired remotely. In most circumstances these tools will help you to get a decent result. But a time will come when you decide you need more control and at the point you will want a studio set up.
Obviously you need a fair amount of space - particularly if you are going to photograph people. A high ceiling is good, and you must have a good 5 meters between the photographer and subject if you want to shoot people full-length. A basement or garage might just be big enough. With light being such an important factor, you cannot afford to let light in from the outside to contaminate your set. Cover all the doors and windows black out cloth and paint the walls black. This prevents the wall color reflecting back onto your subject. If the room is communal, and there are objections to black - it can be a bit depressing - try to get as dark a gray as possible. And try to ensure that you have a good supply of electrical sockets - you will need them.
Controlling the light is one of the primary requirements for every photographer. Once you have excluded all other sources, you can concentrate on how you are going to illuminate your subject. There are two kinds of studio lighting systems - continuous or strobe. Continuous lights come in two flavors - tungsten and fluorescent. Tungsten lights are also known as 'hot lights' as they do give out a lot of heat, which can be a problem if your subject has to sit under them for any length of time. they also give of a warm, reddish glow that is very complimentary to skin tones and so tends to look like natural light.
Fluorescent lights have a more blueish tinge and give the sort of light most associated with pack shots or realistic still lifes. They tend not to emit so much heat as the tungstens. Of course, any light can be corrected with white balance, but ideally you want to work with the lighting rather than trying to compensate against it in all the time. Setting white balance is another thing to think about and sooner or later you will forget to do it and find yourself trying to photoshop it in.
The one great advantage of continuous lighting is that you can actually see how the subject will appear in the picture in real-time. This means that you get the lighting right and can then confidently address other variables like content and composition. With the strobe, you are sometimes not sure if the flash fired or not. In many ways continuous lighting is a lot easier, and I would recommend that you start with this. However, when you need to photograph something or someone and give the impression of movement, or freeze them in action, you will have to use strobe lighting.
Strobe lights allow the photographer a much greater degree of flexibility. The intensity of the flash can be adjusted to suit requirement, and that means that the shutter speed can be controlled far more effectively. If the subject is moving, then your shutter speed needs to be as fast as possible. The only real downside (apart from not being able to see the lighting effect in real time), is that the lights take some time to recharge.
If you are using two lights, I would suggest you use a soft box as the main light and the other light for the background. As the name suggests, the light from the soft box is less harsh and more even. It would be a wise investment to get some barn doors for the second light to help target the light from it more effectively. Set up your trigger on the front light and ensure that you have a trigger on both lights so that they both fire at the same time. Most decent lighting systems have built in slaves these days. Keep the soft box at least 2 meters away from the subject so that you keep the detail, and about 1 meter from the background so that the light spreads evenly.
I would be shooting at ISO 200, 125/ f8. It is a great starting point as you will get good graduation from lower ISO and F8 is about the optimum aperture for most lenses. If you put the light at 45 degrees angle to the subject you will get good shadow detail on the face but always be careful where the shadow falls and make sure it doesn't go across the nose as this is very unflattering. If this is happening bring the light back towards you (and the camera) and it will go away. Always go for the main types of shot first, full length then half length and head and shoulders, you can start to vary your shots once you get into the shoot. Having your subject standing square to the camera is often not very flattering, just a slight angle tends to work better. When you get more aquainted and confident with your set up then you can start to add more lights, adding a hair light/ backlight/ and using a 3 to 1 lighting ratio will be the next step for you.
Obviously you need a fair amount of space - particularly if you are going to photograph people. A high ceiling is good, and you must have a good 5 meters between the photographer and subject if you want to shoot people full-length. A basement or garage might just be big enough. With light being such an important factor, you cannot afford to let light in from the outside to contaminate your set. Cover all the doors and windows black out cloth and paint the walls black. This prevents the wall color reflecting back onto your subject. If the room is communal, and there are objections to black - it can be a bit depressing - try to get as dark a gray as possible. And try to ensure that you have a good supply of electrical sockets - you will need them.
Controlling the light is one of the primary requirements for every photographer. Once you have excluded all other sources, you can concentrate on how you are going to illuminate your subject. There are two kinds of studio lighting systems - continuous or strobe. Continuous lights come in two flavors - tungsten and fluorescent. Tungsten lights are also known as 'hot lights' as they do give out a lot of heat, which can be a problem if your subject has to sit under them for any length of time. they also give of a warm, reddish glow that is very complimentary to skin tones and so tends to look like natural light.
Fluorescent lights have a more blueish tinge and give the sort of light most associated with pack shots or realistic still lifes. They tend not to emit so much heat as the tungstens. Of course, any light can be corrected with white balance, but ideally you want to work with the lighting rather than trying to compensate against it in all the time. Setting white balance is another thing to think about and sooner or later you will forget to do it and find yourself trying to photoshop it in.
The one great advantage of continuous lighting is that you can actually see how the subject will appear in the picture in real-time. This means that you get the lighting right and can then confidently address other variables like content and composition. With the strobe, you are sometimes not sure if the flash fired or not. In many ways continuous lighting is a lot easier, and I would recommend that you start with this. However, when you need to photograph something or someone and give the impression of movement, or freeze them in action, you will have to use strobe lighting.
Strobe lights allow the photographer a much greater degree of flexibility. The intensity of the flash can be adjusted to suit requirement, and that means that the shutter speed can be controlled far more effectively. If the subject is moving, then your shutter speed needs to be as fast as possible. The only real downside (apart from not being able to see the lighting effect in real time), is that the lights take some time to recharge.
If you are using two lights, I would suggest you use a soft box as the main light and the other light for the background. As the name suggests, the light from the soft box is less harsh and more even. It would be a wise investment to get some barn doors for the second light to help target the light from it more effectively. Set up your trigger on the front light and ensure that you have a trigger on both lights so that they both fire at the same time. Most decent lighting systems have built in slaves these days. Keep the soft box at least 2 meters away from the subject so that you keep the detail, and about 1 meter from the background so that the light spreads evenly.
I would be shooting at ISO 200, 125/ f8. It is a great starting point as you will get good graduation from lower ISO and F8 is about the optimum aperture for most lenses. If you put the light at 45 degrees angle to the subject you will get good shadow detail on the face but always be careful where the shadow falls and make sure it doesn't go across the nose as this is very unflattering. If this is happening bring the light back towards you (and the camera) and it will go away. Always go for the main types of shot first, full length then half length and head and shoulders, you can start to vary your shots once you get into the shoot. Having your subject standing square to the camera is often not very flattering, just a slight angle tends to work better. When you get more aquainted and confident with your set up then you can start to add more lights, adding a hair light/ backlight/ and using a 3 to 1 lighting ratio will be the next step for you.
About the Author:
Jeremy Bayston has worked in the photographic industry for more than twenty years. He has a particular interest in digital cameras and photography. Learn more about the new Nikon D7100 and its launch date from his website. Regularly updated with news and advice, it can help you get better pictures from your D7100.
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