Tag:toy photography

Setting Up A Small Home Studio

Since March 2020 (it’s now September), we have been in varying degrees of lockdown from minor to full-on stage four with a curfew. Unable to go out and take photos, I decided I would finally get around to setting up a home studio and practice my macro and still life photography. This led to a minor obsession with 1/87 scale figures, but no one is perfect.

Home Studios

If you have been thinking of setting up a home studio yourself and were put off by the cost, or don’t know where to start, don’t be. Having a designated room or even a corner somewhere can improve your creativity. It’s if there, set up, and ready to go. Therefore, you are much more likely to take photos when otherwise you wouldn’t because you have to drag everything out, set up, and pack up.

It can be done on a budget and be a small corner in the study. Or better yet, a spare bedroom or in your garage. The cost of setting up, plus the size needed, depends on what style or genre you want to photograph. For still life, product or toy photography, a corner of the study, or a smallish spare room works fine. If you’re set up for portraits, then a bigger bedroom or the garage would work better. Your basic studio can be set up for under $500, and you can add to it – as time and finances allow. So, what essentials to start?

Lighting – Allow $80-$500

Be it for portrait or product – you will need some form of lighting. I got by for ages with good window light and camera on a tripod, allowing me to use longer exposures to add the light. As I got more organised, I added artificial lighting. After your camera, lighting will probably be the most expensive purchase for the studio. I originally bought two softboxes on stands as they were cheap ($80 for two. They did work well, but they are bulky and consumed too much space in my small room. If you have space, then softboxes available on eBay will work fine. You can also use a flash – two are better than one, allowing you to work with one off-camera and triggered wirelessly.

neewar lights Setting Up A Small Home Studio
Neewer LED Lights

I wanted continuous lights, so I bought Neewer LED lights. The lights are dimmable, and the colour temperature can also be adjusted. They can be used on a light stand or self-standing on your table if doing still life, toys, or product. Another plus was that they come with a power cord or use rechargeable Sony Li-ion batteries. I have now added the batteries to my setup, as that means there are no cords on the floor to deal with.

godox ad200 Setting Up A Small Home Studio

I also splashed out on buying the Godox AD200 with a wireless trigger. This light works similar to a flash and is great for splash photography. The Godox has interchangeable heads, and you can start with the basic kit and build on it. The beauty of this one is its size – it’s quite portable, and I can use it outdoors for fungi in forests or on the patio without cords when doing splash photography. If you start getting super serious, it also has a big brother, the AD600.

Backdrops $10-$150 each

Again – regardless of the type of photography, you will need some sort of backdrop.

Portrait photography backdrops

You can use black, white, or coloured sheets for backdrops. A single bedsheet works excellent. DO iron it before you hang it, or steam it between shoots if it has creases. I can’t tell you the number of images I have seen, ruined by a crumpled backdrop. Similarly, make sure they don’t drape or fold. I didn’t see the folds in the photo below until I started editing. Now I can’t unsee them. Finally, use clamps on the sides of the backdrops to keep them taut.

Looking for printed backdrops for our portrait and concept shoots, I purchased 1800mm x 2700mm cloth backdrops from Ali Express. The vinyl ones are quite cheap (around $35au), and I started with these, but they are a pain to iron as the creases are hard to get out, aren’t seamless, and do discolour with age. They are also not washable. I changed over to polyester backdrops, around $115au to $145, but they are worth every cent. The creases just drop out with light steam, and the colour is much better and can be washed if need be. If you are storing them on a shelf between shoots, they roll up and aren’t too bulky. I would strongly recommend spending the extra money and getting the polyester backdrops from the start, as the vinyl turned out to be a false economy.

polyester backdrops Setting Up A Small Home Studio
Night Circus concept shoot with Polyester Backdrop
Toy Photography backdrops

For the 1/87 figures – as they were so small – I printed out backgrounds on A4 matt photo paper and stored them in a plastic sleeved display book. The images from expired landscape calendars also make great backgrounds. When using them, I just blu tack them to a glass vase to hold them up and place them behind my scene.

Product or Still Life backdrops

You can make your own backgrounds relatively cheaply for product or still life, either painting stretched canvas boards or MDF or using a black or white foam core board. I did a mini-tutorial HERE on making painted board backdrops. Wallpaper also makes great backdrops or bases – especially the wood-panelled looking wallpaper. This means you can have the look of several wooden tables without the space they would take up. Double-sided backdrop papers are now also available with a different backdrop on each side, giving you two backdrop papers for the price of one. I just ordered several of these. They aren’t huge, but they are a perfect size for product, still life, etc.

Backdrop Stands – $30-$150 each

There are loads of stands on eBay, from small to huge, they aren’t expensive, and the quality is pretty good. You will need one large stand with at least one backdrop for portrait photography. You can get away with a 2m x 2m but a 2m x 3m will be better as you can then do family shots or stage more than one person against it. For tabletop photography (toys, product, still life), the Neewer T-shaped backdrop stand is ideal.

backdrop stand Setting Up A Small Home Studio
Neewer Tabletop Backdrop Stand for the table.

At the moment, I am using the tabletop stand with Black or White PVC to create a seamless backdrop, but the new papers I ordered will also fit this. When I want to have a reflective background, I use Black and White acrylic sheets that I bent to a 90° angle so they self stand.

reptile on black acrylic
Lizard on Black Acrylic
Clamps

Clamps are one thing you need in plenty of, like 8-10. You will use them to attach backdrops to stands at the top and sides, as well as clamp the reflector to a stand. They are cheap as chips, around $2 or less for a pack of 5 from Bunnings, eBay, or the hardware section of the Chinese variety stores.

clamps Setting Up A Small Home Studio
A helping hand

These are fabulous to hold flowers while photographing them if doing macro photography. Just clip the stem to the alligator head, bend the wire as desired, and either clone or crop it out in post.

memo clips
Alligator head memo clips
Reflectors $20-$70

Reflectors are also great to have and cheap as chips. Having a reflector means you can often work without artificial lighting unless the day is particularly dark. Then, with the window light to one side and the reflector to the other, you can bounce the light back and create an evenly lit scene. The reflectors have a loop on the top, and I just attach them to one of the backdrop stand poles with a clamp. They come with removable slipcovers – giving you five different reflectors in one to cover a myriad of lighting temperatures.

photography reflector Setting Up A Small Home Studio
Table – $40 – $100

While a table is unnecessary for portrait photography, you will need one for still life, product, or toy photography (the little miniature people). I picked up a second-hand wooden table on eBay for around $60 that’s about 900mm x 1200mm, and it works great for what I do. Bunnings also sell folding tables in several sizes that won’t break the bank.

Chair or stool

For portrait photography, a nice accent chair makes a great prop. A tall stool also works great and allows you different posing options with your model. Check out FB marketplace. I picked up a fabulous chair for the studio for half of what it would cost retail.

grey studio chair
Shelving $varies

Whether you do portraits or still life, you will need some sort of shelving to hold your props, etc. I have been collecting cups, vases, bowls, old eyeglasses, etc., which has temporarily come to a halt with all our shops closed. I use a bookcase and boxes at the moment. I need more boxes, but, again, it will have to wait until shops are allowed to reopen. I am a tad anal about organisation – so for me, labelled boxes are a must. For my little people, I bought a drawer set to keep them organised. The front of the drawers are labelled, and I keep an excel spreadsheet of their product numbers on my PC, so I know which ones I have bought and don’t double up.

organising the little people Setting Up A Small Home Studio
Tiny people condominium
A photographers stool

It helps to have a stool to sit on while you are working. All that bending over the table is not kind to the back. So I bought a little padded stool on wheels from a salon supply shop online for $75. It’s small, mobile, and I can scoot around all angles on it.

The Setup
studio setup
Everything is set up in front of a south-facing window.

I set my table up in front of a south-facing window with sheer curtains to soften the light. As a result, it gets good light but no direct sunlight. I was in another room first that had lovely morning sunlight coming in the window, but as the sun went in and out of clouds, the light kept changing, as well as creating shadows on the table. I tried diffusing the light coming in and eventually gave up and swapped to another room.

in the studio Setting Up A Small Home Studio
filtered light through a south-facing window

I have the Neewer tabletop stand set up with the white vinyl PVC on my table, and I taped it down to the front edge of the table with Magic Nano Tape. All my other boards lean against the wall behind me, where they are accessible for quick changes when I want them.

I have my camera on the tripod at the front of the table and have a light on the side opposite the window to even the light out when needed. The reflector also hangs on the wall behind me, so it’s easy to grab if I need it.

window lighting and little people
Taken with just window light, no extra lighting used
Finally

Having a designated space for a home studio is fabulous – when you get an idea for an image, you can just run with it. Before I had it set up, if an idea came, it was such a chore to get organised and set up that most of the time, I filed it away for another day.

Initially, my complete home studio, table, softboxes, backdrop, stands, stool cost around $350 to set up. From there, I replaced things as I could afford them, but in the meantime, I had use of it and went in there regularly. Had I waited till I could afford everything at once, I would never have started it. So look around – do you have somewhere you can use? If so, go for it!

© Bevlea Ross