Setting up a home photo studio to take pcitures of my daughter?
February 212010
I am looking to set up a home studio to take pictures of my daughter. I will probably buy a Canon Rebel SLR Digital Camera.
My questions are:
1. Is this a good enough camera to take nice pictures of my baby?
2. What else do I need (lights, background, etc) to set this up?
3. How much will this cost in total?
Thank you.
This is for my 2 month old baby daughter. I figure if I am going to spend a lot of money with photographers I might as well buy the equipment and take pictures whenever I want. thanks.
A rebel is fine for this purpose and as photo ace mentioned – savage makes a nice inexpensive backdrop stand that you can use paper roles or cloth with (the paper roles are pretty cheap). For lights, alien bees are always a good start and two B400s (or even one) should do the trick. As for a light meter, well, if time is no object you can always just fire away until it looks good.
I would offer one caution, however. Taking high quality pictures of your daughter has very little to do with equipment. If you know very little or nothing about photography, you could possibly spend a $1000 on all this equipment and be very disappointed in the results. DSLRs are harder to use than point and shoot cameras. You have to learn about lighting ratios, exposure and post processing. I’ve spent a lifetime learning and while my clients are normally happy with the results, I always see something I could have done better. Maybe a cheap digital point and shoot would be a good place to start and then go from there. You can do a lot of portrait sittings for $1000. Good luck and have fun!
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 am
Uh…unless you are a pedophile…you need to word that A LOT differently.
Like, is your daughter some pre-teen or teen aspiring to be a model?
Or is your "baby" an infant?
What is your reason for taking pictures?
Edit::
Oh, okay, well that sounds a lot better. :]
I wasn’t implying, just asking.
I agree with the person below me…feel free to give them the points and just consider me an aid.
References :
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:42 am
1. Any Canon or Nikon digital SLR is better than good enough. Lens wise you will want one that will zoom out to at least 55mm or better 85mm for shooting portraits of people (and babies).
2. Savage makes a nice "portable" background stand for under $100. I buy the ends of fabric bolts for about $1 a yard (4 to 5 yards) in the color I need and sew a loop in one of the long ends. I use one hot light on an adjustable stand and set my D200 to the incandescent setting.
3. If you purchase everything over the Internet, then the cost will be just under about $1200. This will over the camera body, lens, lighting and background.
Take a look at the link below and see what you can find in the way of bargains.
References :
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:05 am
A rebel is fine for this purpose and as photo ace mentioned – savage makes a nice inexpensive backdrop stand that you can use paper roles or cloth with (the paper roles are pretty cheap). For lights, alien bees are always a good start and two B400s (or even one) should do the trick. As for a light meter, well, if time is no object you can always just fire away until it looks good.
I would offer one caution, however. Taking high quality pictures of your daughter has very little to do with equipment. If you know very little or nothing about photography, you could possibly spend a $1000 on all this equipment and be very disappointed in the results. DSLRs are harder to use than point and shoot cameras. You have to learn about lighting ratios, exposure and post processing. I’ve spent a lifetime learning and while my clients are normally happy with the results, I always see something I could have done better. Maybe a cheap digital point and shoot would be a good place to start and then go from there. You can do a lot of portrait sittings for $1000. Good luck and have fun!
References :