studio photography tips?

[departed]

so i'm guessing a fair few of you take photos of your setups for websites/myspace pages etc to show off to clients. evidently, larger studios will hire professionals to do the job, but whenever i try it ends up looking really unprofessional and unworthy of putting up to display.

i have access to a relatively good camera (i think). it's a nikon d40?

does anyone have any tips for lighting or anything for taking pictures of gear at home?

 

[arv_foh]

1. put the camera on a tripod and take some long exposures using the natural room lighting, use the lowest ISO possible so you don't get a lot of noise in the photo

2. use a timed shutter release (I believe Nikons have 2sec and 5sec) so when you press the shutter you don't shake the camera and blur your photo (look up how to do a timed release in the manual)

3. use the correct white balance or shoot the photos in RAW so you can fix it later

This photo was a 3.2 second exposure@ISO100, lit only by my monitor, I opened my web browser and went to a page that was almost pure white

 

[guitarguru777]

yup,

In low light situations make sure you have the Tripod. Its your most important tool. Keeping the longer exposure makes the camera subject to jitter and if you are holding the camera you will get motion blur.

Keep in mind different kinds of lighting offer different color temperatures. So pick one source and use it as your reference for your white balance.

I went to WalMart and purchased some cheap work lights and put some 5300k 100W fluorescent bulbs in them. Then i strategically positioned them around the room to reduce the amount of shadow and get the room well lit so that I didn't have to shoot at IS01600

I shot this for the "show us your studio" thread:

ISO 200 with a Flash, pretty terrible. You DONT want your photos looking like this.

This was shot ISO1600 with a single light. Again something you DONT want. See all the grainyness? This was taken before I really understood "lighting"

You want something similar to this ..... Correct color temperature, little shadow, granted the "angles" arent great but it works, and is properly lit.

(sorry for the MySpace photo compressions. Its the only version I have access to from work ..lol)

 

[Flat Fifth Fury]

For interiors your two must haves is:
1) a solid tripod
2) very wide lens

A Nikon D40 will make a very nice file so you are fine there. You can get a good enough tripod for not that much money like this one: Slik U212 The legs are ok but the head is kinda shoddy but will work. A good entry level Manfrotto 190dx legset will cost you about $100 alone and a basic head another $75. This is a photographic tool that you will be able to use for years so look at it as an investment. So I'd go for the Manfrotto if you can afford it. Anything less will be flimsy and unstable. My personal tripods are all Gitzo which start about $400 for the legs alone.

The truly wide lenses are expensive so I'd rent one. www.Borrowlenses.com is very cool as they will ship you lenses for rather cheap. You would want a 10-20mm lens for the kind of interiors that you would be using. You can buy one for starting at $500 or rent it for $20 for three days.

As the others said long exposures are the ticket. Use your lowest ISO, engage the long exposure noise compensation and select an aperture around f/8-11 so that you have enough depth of field to keep things sharp. This will end up with an exposure in the 2-10 second range depending on the light level. Start with the lights that are there and if you need to add more light even a simple work light will do but you will be surprised how just the ambient light looks when properly exposed.