Poor man’s studio
I originally wrote this post last November but for unknown reasons never published it. I might as well, because I couldn’t find any instructions for my setup on the internet. It’s extremely low cost and only uses a couple of flashes.
The setup basically involves my Nikon D80 with an SB-800 attached, plus a Sunpak 555 connected to the SB-800’s sync port. There is nothing else fancy about it. The white background is just a pile of A3 paper spread out over my desk.
The most confusing part is the Sunpak flash. Mine is second-hand and there is very little documentation regarding how to actually operate it and whether it plays nice with my other gear. Well, it does. It has two ways of syncing to a camera: it has a weird proprietary sync port which requires a cable that I can’t find anywhere, or via hot-shoe or a regular sync cable using the STD-1D module. That’s the cheapest module and is a lot cheaper than the various TTL modules.
Anyway, I point one flash at the subject and the other at the ceiling. Then it’s just a matter of trial and error to get the flash exposure right. After a few minutes, I was producing great quality product shots which I never thought would have been so simple. The only key is to overexpose the flash a bit so that the overlapping edges of the paper blow out and disappear while keeping the subject properly lit. Everything is in manual mode.
Here are some samples. Sorry, I’ll find some more interesting (and a greater variety of) subjects next time.
Calculating flash exposure
- Shutter speed is totally irrelevant because all light is coming from the flashes.
- Aperture can be freely used to adjust depth of field and overall exposure, no need to worry about background exposure because there is none.
- ISO - no need to explain that
- Flash exposures - normally I start at max for both and reduce them until I get a good balance. The direct (non-bounced) flash can be turned down a bit to reduce shadows.
