A couple days ago, I mentioned that that I am going to do a few posts on some inexpensive studio setups. Well, it’s your lucky day because here’s the first of the two.

As I said, I’ve been doing some product shots for a company. It’s Saint Charles Shave, a small firm that specializes in shaving and toiletry products for men. (Their womens items are great as well says my wife.) Luckily, all the items are relatively small and don’t require a full studio. Seeing as I don’t have a room to spare as a full-time studio, I needed something that would be easy to setup and breakdown. I also didn’t want to spend an arm and a leg on equipment I only use a few times a month. So I set out to find an inexpensive setup that I could use in any room of the house. This is what I came up with.

I did quite a bit of research on the topic and came to the conclusion I needed two lights, some diffusion panels, and some paper for a seamless background. Here’s the required list.

• Two 300 watt flood lamps ($30)
• Two 250 watt flood bulbs ($10)
• Two diffusion panels ($25)
• Poster board ($5)
• Two bounce panels ($5)
• Tape, hangers, chairs, extension cords, etc… (laying around the house)

The total for this studio is $75 (with one glaring exception I’ll explain later).

I looked high and low for the flood lamps at a decent price and came away from Lowes with two 300 watt “heat lamps”. I decided on the heat lamps because I first used 150 watt floods, but couldn’t get enough light from any of the standard 100-125 watt bulbs. The heat lamps allowed me to use real 250 watt photo flood bulbs.

I picked up the 250 watt bulbs at Samy’s. There’s all kinds you can get, I but I decided on 250 watt, daylight balanced floods. They cost about $5 a piece and cast a bright light and are easy to get a color balance. The key here is to use lights with the same color temperature. Since I was only using the two lights I could have got away with any color temperature, but I played it safe and got the daylight version. They cost the same.
The two diffusion panels were inspired by Stephanie’s post. The only difference in mine are that I used silk fabric found in the wedding section of a local fabric store. Hey, it was cheaper than real diffusional gels from a camera store.

The seamless background was created from standard poster board type paper from a craft store. Lots of different choices in color. And since all I needed was a small size, I didn’t need to spend the big bucks on real seamless photo paper.

I found that with some shots, I needed to help direct the light a little. I bought a couple foam boards from the craft store and left them untouched. The white surface bounces light just fine.

I used tape to hold up the paper, and a couple chairs and bent clothes hangers to position the lights. Here’s how it looked when all done.

Top View

Side View

Here’s a few sample photos from this setup.

So what was that one exception to the total price? Those stupid flood bulbs only last about 10 hours. If you don’t move them while they’re hot, you MAY be able to squeeze out 20 hours. Mine kept popping at around 10. At $10 a set of two, that adds up quite quickly.

My other reservation about this setup is that it’s not the quickest to setup and break down. After a few months of dealing with this, I started to search out a better way. And I found it. The next post in this serious will explain a better, cheaper, and faster way to get a home studio setup of your own. I wish I would have found this method earlier. How is that for a teaser!