I took up professional photography in college, when I was broke.  It took me a year to save enough for my first DSLR camera, the then-current Canon EOS 300D.  Then came good lenses, filters, bags, and a need for lights, stands, and basic studio equipment.  If yo

u want to feel your heart skip a beat some day, go to B&H Photo and browse about, adding everything you think you need (need, not want) to your cart, and see how much it comes to.

When you’re done hyperventilating, read on.  I’m going to share some tips for building and buying cheap photography studio equipment – stuff that actually works.  Granted, it won’t always work as well as professional gear, but sometimes it actually does.

Home Depot Clamp Lights: $7 each.  I started with these and still have them kicking around (as I mentioned in the last post, one is now the main room light in my apartment).  They’re useful as general work lights, and now and then I still use them for photography. 

 Do yourself a favor and buy some GE Reveal light bulbs – they filter out the ugly yellow color cast of standard bulbs and come closer to natural light, which means that getting them to work with your white balance settings is much easier.  Or, for those of you working with models, get some new energy efficient screw-in fluorescent bulbs, which run a lot cooler than incandescent bulbs, which means less sweating for everyone.

PVC Lightstands: ~$6 each.  I built these myself, without any plans.  I used 1/2″ PVC pipe, the white stuff.  It’s a couple of dollars for several feet of it at Home Depot and Lowes.  Mine are 49″ tall, the same height as my professional lightstands without the extensions.  The base is 15″ long and 13″ wide.  If you’re really savvy, you’ll build them out of 3/4″ PVC pipe and insert a section of 1/2″ metal wiring conduit into the vertical PVC piece for added strength (I didn’t do this originally, and with too much weight, my stands tended to flex, sag, or fall over).  A sandbag makes a good base weight if you need extra stability.

Foam Core Softboxes: ~$8 each.  I also built these myself, from scratch.  I dismantled them when I stopped using the clamp lights and don’t have any photos handy.  But each was basically a trapezoid, where the front (long end) was open and covered by a piece of muslin.  The sides and back (short end) were made of foam core (also known as foam board), purchased at CVS in the art aisle.  They were sized so a clam light fit inside, with the clamp extending through a small hole in the back.  A smaller version could be easily built to work with Speedlight style flashes.

Bed Sheet Backgrounds: $15.  Muslins are expensive.  Target and TJ Maxx sell white cotton bed sheet sets for cheap.  You’re only interested in the sheet itself, so if you can buy one separate, do it.  For plain white backgrounds, they work pretty well.  You’ll need to iron the wrinkles out before using them (or be prepared to burn them out in Photoshop).  They aren’t often tall enough to shoot a standing model against – so sew two together with as small a seam as you can manage.  But for smaller items or a sitting person, they get the job done.  As for mounting, I tape mine right to the wall along the top edge and sometimes the side. (Or in the instance of this photo, just lay them on the floor.)

Colored Backgrounds: $20.  This is the bed sheet from above with color added, using Rit dye packets (if you already have a sheet, the dye packets are about $5 each).  You’ll also need a cheap spray bottle – check the dollar store or Target.  Making these is easy and it’s fun.  Run the sheet through the wash to remove any lint.  Pick a sunny, warm day and lay the sheet out on the grass in your yard.  Soak it down with a garden hose, then use your hands to scrunch it up until it’s about 1/4 of its spread-out size.  Grab big handfuls when you scrunch it up.  Mix your dye in a bucket of hot water and begin sloshing it on the scrunched up sheet, coloring most of it.  Use two complimentary colors or shades for better results (mix both up in separate buckets, slosh on one, then the other, in different areas).  Then spread your sheet back out and use the spray bottle to apply dye to specific areas, if wanted.  Let it dry in the sun and you’re done (although hanging it up and hosing it down again will help remove excess dye).  Believe me, it’s addictive how much fun this is.  And you end up with very cool backdrops with a sort of tie-dyed effect.

Simple Lightbox: ~free.  I talked about using one of these in the eBay photography post.  It’s a cardboard box with large windows cut out of all four sides (one side will be the bottom, but if all four are cut out, you can use a rectangular box in either “portrait” or “landscape” orientation, depending on the item.  After cutting out the windows, the box is weakened – I covered the remaining cardboard in strips of duct tape for added strength.  Then tape computer or tracing paper over all the windows to create diffusers (softens the light and makes it look better).  Tape a piece of poster board inside the box so that it covers the solid back and curves down over whichever window is the bottom.  This creates a solid-colored background to place your item in front of.  White is easiest and often looks best, but you can use colors if you want.  Place your clamp lights or flashes 1-2 feet from either (or several, or all) of the remaining windows and shoot away.  As mentioned before, this is a great way to take simple, easy eBay shots of small objects.

A good studio will have at least (3) lights.  More is definitely better as you get more advanced, but (3) is great number for beginners.  I’ll talk more about how to use them all together sometime in the future.  But if you were to go out and build everything listed here and end up with:

-3x clamp lights

-3x PVC lightstands

-3x foam core softboxes

-1x white bed sheet background

-1x colored bed sheet background

-1x small lightbox

You’d be able to do simple product photography and portrait photography and you’d probably spend under $100.  Not bad at all, especially since there are no fancy electronics, no complicated systems, and every piece listed above will work equally well with a point & shoot or DSLR camera.