I'm considering setting up a studio in my back room (it has a north-facing window). Nothing elaborate, just the bare minimum required for...let's call it a portrait studio -- pictures of friends and family, maybe the occasional family sitting for a fee. Even with a very small studio, I would be the only game in town. I live in a small, isolated town in northern Ontario -- so small and isolated that you can't get here by car and there is no one in town offering this kind of service. What I'm saying is that I won't be shooting any bottles of Absolut (not photographing, anyway), so I won't need seven Speedotron units and more umbrellas than a Honolulu bartender. Are those starter kits OK? Backdrops? (no muslin, please.) Etc.

I develop my own and shoot only B&W. What paper would be best for portraits?

Thanks for all your help. This site has been such a great resource for me that I was hard pressed to find a question that hadn't already been posed.

Keith

P.S. I'm not far enough north for 24-hour light and darkness, but, at this time of year, the sun doesn't get above 35 degrees in the sky. The light (including the northern lights) i

-- Keith Benoit (holybuzz@onlink.net), November 20, 1998

Answers

Apologies for posting my hardware question in the "Creativity" forum. I'll re-post to...somewhere else.

Keith

-- Keith Benoit (holybuzz@onlink.net), November 20, 1998.

This is getting silly. Seems this *is* the place for my post, now that the original B&W forum is defunct. You won't hear from me again

-- Keith Benoit (holybuzz@onlink.net), November 20, 1998.

This is a fine place for this question, as the other two forums in this series are more specialist. "Creativity" covers manny things.

Depending on your budget, you could start out with a single mains- powered flash unit and (a) something to diffuse it with, and (b) a reflector. However, life is easier with two flash units and a white brolly to diffuse one of them.

I would suggest using a good flash spotmeter. Another useful accessory is a dummy head to try out lighting techniques.

As you are using B&W, you could quite easily do without the flash, and just use mains lights. Or just use the flash "modelling" lights. With these non-flash lights, you can easily see the effect of the light. The downside is longer exposures, faster apertures and films.

For backgrounds, a common arrangement is paper rolls hung from a beam. You could just use a pole, and yards of different sorts of cloth.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), November 23, 1998.

Two things pop to my mind: #1, what equipment do you have now? #2, there is nearly an identical discussion over in MFD: http://db.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000JNF

If you schedule your photography during daylight, you won't need too much in the way of flash equipment. Yes, the starter kits are good. Try to find out the nitts about them, though. I know there is a less expensive strobe which will flash two or three times after its power has been cut. Can't remember the name of it, though. Something like that may or may not be worrisome.

I have started off with a Photek umbrella to compliment my Vivitar 285 flash. The flash and umbrella is adequate for 9ft with ISO 400. To start, though, you only need one flash and some flash accessories.

For backdrops, you can use velour blankets (color selection is adequate) and paint patterns on one side, and dye your own muslin (full panel paint drop cloths) to taste. Perhaps moveable wood planks would be a nice touch. Brick? Find an old pile, knock the bricks in half length-wise, mount to plywood. Could do the same for tile. Moose hide, sans moose? Those little sprouts for Chia-pets? Glue bark and sawdust to plywood? Paint splotches on tarp? Fresh plant leaves and such? Fake plant leaves?

Go for it.

-- Brian C. Miller (a-bcmill@exchange.microsoft.com), November 23, 1998.

I think the other answers have been good. With a single person, you can do a lot with a single flash. With more people, a second flash starts to get important. Hot lights might be workable too. Considering your location, their heat output might not be a problem. Exposures with hot lights tend to be long, not a good idea if you want to photograph children.

You didn't mention format. I suggest that whatever light source you choose, if you're shooting 4x5, get enough light that you can work at f/22 even though you might be able to get by with f/16, especially with groups. With medium format, you can probably live with f/11. 35mm could loose another stop.

Backgrounds can be seamless paper or muslin or canvas. You may want stools or wood boxes or something for people to sit on.

Paper: I use Ilford MG-IV FB for nearly everything. I tried the ilford warmtone a while back and it just didn't click with me. It's been a while, and I'd like to try it, or another warm paper again.

-- mike rosenlof (mike_rosenlof@yahoo.com), November 27, 1998.

For hot lights, you could buy cheap halogen work lamps. A local superstore sells them for $20US. When using tungsten light sources with color film, you will need to either place a filter over your lens (80A, 80B), or use tungsten-balanced film (Kodak Ektachrome 160T). Otherwise the photos will show a nice, warm glow.

-- Brian C. Miller (a-bcmill@exchange.microsoft.com), November 28, 1998.