Hello Scott, The room does seem a little challenging. One big issue is the height of the ceiling. My umbrellas have a removable back that allows them to either bounce or shoot through. When the ceilings are high I can use them for bouncing the light, but if the ceilings are lower, then shooting through saves me several feet. So that is one suggestion - get shoot through umbrellas. Basically you need to have the light high enough for the shadows to fall behind your subject.
As to backdrop, Bill Robb has talked a few times about more of a muslin like drop that you can make yourself - maybe he'll chime in. In that size of width, some natural folds to the cloth might look less antiseptic than seamless and might be easier to deal with. For lights, I use the Alien Bees. They are priced very competitively and have features to match the high end systems. My understanding is that they are lighter duty, so wouldn't be a good choice for a studio that is shooting day in and day out. But for my usage, which is much more hit and miss, they are excellent. It is certainly worth checking them out. Anyway, some starting advice - hope it helps. -- Bruce Wednesday, April 18, 2007, 9:19:57 PM, you wrote: SL> Howdy, gang! The wife and I have been talking about doing a little SL> studio portraiture and were wondering if we could solicit a few opinions SL> from the sanitari......PDML. SL> We need to be able to set it up and take it down quickly. We also need SL> to be able to store it as compactly as possible. Our initial thoughts SL> were to start simple - a 53" roll of white seamless, stands for the SL> roll, and a couple lights with either umbrellas or soft boxes. A single SL> light and a reflector may suit our needs, too. I'd rather not deal with SL> the heat from tungsten lights, so it's either fluorescent continuous SL> lighting or monoblocks. Current plans are to photograph the kids a lot, SL> guests when they'll allow it, and a few "models" for some projects I'm SL> considering. One or two people in the frame should be typical. SL> As far as environment goes, we have 9 foot ceilings and enough space to SL> move the camera up to about 20 feet from the sitter. Our house is SL> almost a shotgun style, so width of the backdrop is an issue. Anything SL> wider than 6' would be problematic unless I moved a lot of furniture SL> around. Windows face northeast and northwest SL> Anyone care to offer an opinion about brands, continuous vs. strobe, SL> watt seconds, etc? SL> Thanks! SL> -- SL> Scott Loveless SL> www.twosixteen.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
