Beginner looking for budget studio lighting solutions to create flatlays

Obin Robinson · 04-08-2017, 05:23 AM

Originally posted by yas_min

Wow that looks pretty much perfect to me - if I could work out how to get the background white I would be beyond happy! Thanks so much for showing me this pic...time to look a bit further into the monolights. Thanks again

[COLOR="Silver"]

The Flashpoint 320M monolights are VERY powerful. You could easily get away with using these:

Flashpoint Budget Studio Monolight Flash, 120 Watt Seconds BF-120W

I need the big monolights for taking photos of furniture. Here's some photos I took of furniture and you can see I need a lot of light to illuminate them and eliminate as many shadows as possible. To get the background white requires a bit of tweaking. It ends up being a little yellow due to the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. Sorry for the second image looking a little blurry because I bumped the camera slightly. I just wanted you to get the general idea.

obin

Obin Robinson · 04-08-2017, 09:32 AM

Originally posted by Brooke Meyer

Your exposure times are much longer than needed which is why you're getting ambient light color. Use max sync of 1/180 or even down to 1/125. What you want is an exposure that is black without flash. With flash, shutter speed doesn't matter.

Thanks for the tip!

obin

Obin Robinson · 04-08-2017, 05:53 PM

I took your advice and I took this photo at a much higher shutter speed. This Kalimar tambor door storage cabinet is sitting on a piece of foam and the background is a piece of construction paper that is curved up against the wall. I used two Flashpoint 320M monolights to evenly illuminate the cabinet. If this is the sort of thing that the original poster is looking for then you can see it's not hard to do with monolights and construction paper.

obin

Obin Robinson · 04-17-2017, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by Brooke Meyer

And no ambient color from fluorescent overheads!

I have also started blocking the lights in the background using an umbrella on a light stand. I find that now there is no yellow tint from the fluorescents at all. By the way here's another set of photos taken on the white foam board with the two Flashpoint monolights and Metz flash on the K-3. The background is a curved piece of craft paper tucked under the back edge of the foam board. I took these photos for a Mid Century Modern group on Facebook.

As you can see a piece of foam and a curved piece of paper work great.

obin

paulster · 04-17-2017, 02:35 PM - **1 Like**

You could draw your blinds to help with the amount of window reflection in these. Once you see it, it becomes distracting. And if you have sufficient flash power available then stop down a bit. It'll give you added depth of field to make more of the product in focus (which is good for something you want to sell), plus it'll also reduce the impact of the reflections from the windows since the daylight will be correspondingly stopped down as well.

As an example if you are on 1/4 power on your strobes then open them up to full power (plus 2 stops), then stop the aperture down by 2 stops and your net exposure will be the same but the reflections will be 2 stops darker and you'll gain more depth of field to boot.

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04-08-2017, 05:23 AM	#16
Obin Robinson Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Photos: Albums Posts: 272	Originally posted by yas_min Wow that looks pretty much perfect to me - if I could work out how to get the background white I would be beyond happy! Thanks so much for showing me this pic...time to look a bit further into the monolights. Thanks again [COLOR="Silver"] The Flashpoint 320M monolights are VERY powerful. You could easily get away with using these: Flashpoint Budget Studio Monolight Flash, 120 Watt Seconds BF-120W I need the big monolights for taking photos of furniture. Here's some photos I took of furniture and you can see I need a lot of light to illuminate them and eliminate as many shadows as possible. To get the background white requires a bit of tweaking. It ends up being a little yellow due to the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. Sorry for the second image looking a little blurry because I bumped the camera slightly. I just wanted you to get the general idea. obin

04-08-2017, 09:32 AM	#17
Obin Robinson Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Photos: Albums Posts: 272	Originally posted by Brooke Meyer Your exposure times are much longer than needed which is why you're getting ambient light color. Use max sync of 1/180 or even down to 1/125. What you want is an exposure that is black without flash. With flash, shutter speed doesn't matter. Thanks for the tip! obin

04-08-2017, 05:53 PM	#18
Obin Robinson Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Photos: Albums Posts: 272	I took your advice and I took this photo at a much higher shutter speed. This Kalimar tambor door storage cabinet is sitting on a piece of foam and the background is a piece of construction paper that is curved up against the wall. I used two Flashpoint 320M monolights to evenly illuminate the cabinet. If this is the sort of thing that the original poster is looking for then you can see it's not hard to do with monolights and construction paper. obin

04-17-2017, 01:03 PM	#19
Obin Robinson Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2014 Photos: Albums Posts: 272	Originally posted by Brooke Meyer And no ambient color from fluorescent overheads! I have also started blocking the lights in the background using an umbrella on a light stand. I find that now there is no yellow tint from the fluorescents at all. By the way here's another set of photos taken on the white foam board with the two Flashpoint monolights and Metz flash on the K-3. The background is a curved piece of craft paper tucked under the back edge of the foam board. I took these photos for a Mid Century Modern group on Facebook. As you can see a piece of foam and a curved piece of paper work great. obin

04-17-2017, 02:35 PM - 1 Like	#20
paulster Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2016 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 159	You could draw your blinds to help with the amount of window reflection in these. Once you see it, it becomes distracting. And if you have sufficient flash power available then stop down a bit. It'll give you added depth of field to make more of the product in focus (which is good for something you want to sell), plus it'll also reduce the impact of the reflections from the windows since the daylight will be correspondingly stopped down as well. As an example if you are on 1/4 power on your strobes then open them up to full power (plus 2 stops), then stop the aperture down by 2 stops and your net exposure will be the same but the reflections will be 2 stops darker and you'll gain more depth of field to boot.