Pics or it didn’t happen!

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.

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A new (old) camera - Nikon F90X

I do have a habit of taking photos as many of you know, and since my D70 is dead and waiting to be fixed at the service centre, I got myself a cheap old film SLR on ebay. Mind you, it’s cheap but back in 1994 when this camera came out, it was the almost-pro amateur camera/pro’s backup body, much like what the D200 is today.

The worst thing about this camera is that there is no way to set the aperture on the body - you have to work around in Program mode if you have a G lens without the aperture ring.

The amazing thing is that my Tokina 12-24mm mounts on it and gives a full image at 18mm. Which is the equivalent of 12mm on digital. The top LCD also has a funky backlight like the ones you got on digital watches from the same era. The back LCD panel isn’t working because that’s actually a data back and not an integral part of the camera and needs its own batteries, which need replacing.

Pics or it didn’t happen:

The tiny 50mm lens in the corner is just there to stop the thing from tipping over like how it has in the last picture.

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