What do I need for a home studio?

First, you'll need enough room to build a home studio. This can be a room in your house that you barely use, or a shed or garage. Don't have a room available? You can move the furniture in your living room. For beautiful photos, it's important there's enough room around your object. That way, you can take photos from different angles. In addition, the equipment should be placed around the object.

Light sources are used in a studio, like a continuous light or flash. This can be as expensive as you want. If you have a small budget, construction lamps will do. If you don't mind spending a little more money, you can purchase a continuous light or studio flash. You can adjust the intensity of these lights to your own liking.

You can attach light shaping tools to the light sources to adjust the hardness of the light. Common light shaping tools are softboxes, snoots, and umbrellas. As the name suggests, a softbox softens the lighting. That way, you can create soft shadows. A snoot is the opposite. This light shaping tool bundles the light, which makes it fall directly onto the object. As a result, you'll see hard shadows. You can use a snoot to illuminate a small part.

Photos that were taken in a photo studio often have a smooth background. This ensures that the background doesn't distract you from the object. If there's no even wall in the room, you can create a suitable background with a large paper roll or a sheet. Some photos have a background with a design, this is something you can choose too. For example, play with the design of the background and the clothes of your model.

If you want to photograph small products, it's nice to use a studio table. That way, you can work while standing. The ground and background blend together. Thanks to this, you won't be bothered with the transition in the background. Because the white plate of the table lets light through, you can also illuminate the objects from the bottom. That way, you can get rid of the shadow that's caused by the lighting from above to get neutral photos.

A tripod isn't required for studio photos, but it's a useful accessory. With a tripod, you can easily take photos from the same angle. You can take a series of photos without moving. If you've found a good angle, you can keep the tripod in that position. That way, you won't have to look for the right angle every time. When you're using a tripod, you can take photos without motion blur. You'll need this for macro photography, for example.