Get a home studio

To take professional-looking still life photographs, using a studio is more than advised. You can go to a professional studio, but you can also build your own, at home.

What you need

I would say there are two main parts you need: background, and light. You could add others things to this list, but that's the basics.

The simplest studio

Here is an article on diyphotography of the most simple, cheap and basic "home studio". It is composed of an A0 sheet of paper, and duck tape. The piece of paper is used as background, and we rely on natural sunlight for the rest. You can't make it cheaper!

The light tent

The paper sheet studio is nice for beginning without buying anything. You can experiment and have fun with it, but soon you will want to have more control over the light and maybe a more sustainable studio.

The light tent can be the next step. It is basically a cube shaped object in which you place your subject. It is designed so that light is spread evenly. You can either use a flash or lamps from your home, placed on the sides and pointed at the light box. Plus, light tents are usually foldable, making them easy to tidy up or carry.

My Home Studio by ©Sam Knox

These tents are really affordable, check the ones at Steve's Photo Shop or the Ezcube ones. If you don't want to spend money or if you simply find it funnier to build them, you can find tutorials to help you build one, such as this one on diyphotography, this one on digital-photography-school or the ones on creativepro.

Human sized studios

Although these studios are cool, their size restraints the kind of photos you can take with. For example you cannot take pictures of people. Also, light is difficult to control with precision with this kind of setting.

Make a splash wherever you go! by ©Vikram Vetrivel

The main thing you need to go further is space. And with space, you need more powerful lights. With these, Prateek Bahadur has come up with a bigger version of the light tent.

My home macro studio. Idea Courtesy - Strobist.com by ©Prateek Bahadur

It does take nice photos !

Motorcycle by ©Prateek Bahadur

Once again you have the choice between buying and building. You still need a background, and light.
For the background, you use a backdrop. Here is a place for buying, and here is an example of building.

For the light it is more complicated. You have many options, and this subject would deserve an article of its own. Let's just say you need light sources, sync devices, reflectors and diffusers. You can start with a single flash unit!

I wrote in the beginning of the article that you can add things to your list. On top of them is a tripod, which is best to use with a remote. You can complete your accessories with props.

Go further

Here are more articles you might be interested in :

• Setting up your own studio at home on iStockphoto
• How to start a home-based photo studio at cnet
• Homestudio articles at diyphotography

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High Speed Photography: Frozen In Time

Yesterday's note was all about long time exposure, today the lizard will show you what happens when you do the opposite: take photographs with very short time exposure.

Just like slow shutter speed can be used to integrate motion in a picture, high shutter speed is used to capture a moment; the exposure time is so short that it looks like time has stopped!

You may understand the difficulties to take such pictures: first you need to set a shutter speed fast enough to avoid any motion blur; second you need enough light to have the right exposure, unless you are OK with letting some noise in by increasing ISO; third synchronisation IS an issue. Accessories we talked about lately will undoubtedly come in handy (you don't need to thank me!).

Get ready for mindblowing pictures and visit
Hongkiat - High Speed Photography: Frozen In Time
Digital Photography School - 13 High Speed Photography Images
How I Took It - 35 Awesome Examples Of High Speed Photography Ideas

Bubbles don't POP, they RIP, SPLIT, TEAR, CRACK!!! by richard.heeks

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Fireworks photograph tips

Fireworks are gorgeous. They are a powerful ballet of sounds and lights. And what make them so special to me, is that they remind me of holiday, no matter what time of the year it is.

I want to share two links of ten tips each. Why sharing two links this time? Well, I found it funny to come across two articles of ten tips each and have so few in common!

Photofos - 10 fireworks photograph tips
Digital photography school - How to photograph fireworks

Singapore new year 2009 fireworks by Souvik Prometure

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Motion blur

When first learning about photography, we believe we should always avoid blur. What a terrible mistake!

Through blur you can add an important missing information into a photograph: motion.

Digital photography school has published an article that will illustrate motion blur and give you advice to take your own photos: 13 places to practice taking beautiful motion blur images.

Beatnik by digitalpimp

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