Let's face it, there isn't really enough space in your average family house for a photographers portrait studio. If you're trying to recreate the white-backgrounds a la Avedon, Peter Hurley or Bailey, it's a bit tricky to convince your better half to convert your front room into your personal photographic space. This is where a simple projector screen comes in.
Every slide shooter in the 60's and '70's would have had one of these- the best way to show those holiday chromes in all their glory, but sadly slides are now mostly a thing of the past. This means we can pick up these gloriously white screens for a song. They roll up into a relatively small and lightweight size and are perfect for making a bright background for your portraits.
The make, obviously, doesn't matter. Just make sure that the screen is clean and the stand unfolds properly. I tend to use a couple of flashes on my subject and one on the background. The background flash doesn't need to be that bright, just check your histogram to see that the screen is tipping over to pure white. If the flash is too bright you'll get glare and flare ruining your shots.
Because the ceilings in our house are quite low, I have my subject sitting on a chair in front of the screen, with umbrellas in front. The background flash usually sits on the floor, just behind the chair and shinning up at the screen.
So if you fancy creating some simple but effective head shots, track down a second hand projector screen and have some fun.
If you've bought a Gel Holder with your Rosco Strobist Gels then the above video won't be of interest, unless of course you've got more than one flash and don't fancy spending another tenner on a piece of plastic....
Quite simply, the Rosco Strobist Gels are a little too short. As you offer them up to the front of your flash, you'll wonder how on earth you're meant to fix them on. You could flick the diffuser panel down and use that to hold the Gel, but that reduces your power and will probably lead to a melted piece of coloured plastic sticking to your flash head.
As I've said, you can buy dedicated Gel Clips that'll hold the colored Gels in place, but they're more expensive than my solution - just add tabs of sellotape to each side, with a white tag detailing which Gel it is.
Simple, cheap, effective, and I'm sure someone has thought of it already!
Remember the first time you got a SLR or dSLR? You feverishly opened the box, fitted the lens, charged the batteries, read the instruction manual, then went out and took some photographs. The images looked great on the back of the camera, perhaps not so good on your PC, and maybe something else felt lacking.
If you'd come from owning Bridge Cameras or Super-Zooms, the lack of focal length of the kit SLR lenses can be a little disappointing. A quick surf of the web or scan of photo magazines would reveal the startling costs of more lenses to give you the telephoto or wide angle or macro that you're used to.
So then you've got a choice. Dig deep and buy new lenses, or if you're a skint photographer like myself, you're going to have to try and grab second-hand bargains off eBay, Gumtree, car-boot sales and charity shops.
As you can see from the video at the beginning of this article, with a little luck and a lot of patience you can build up a nice little glass collection that'll see you right in most non-professional situations, and as long as you work around the lenses limitations, which revolve around tight maximum apertures and non-standard lens mounts, you'll get some quite good results.
I'll have to admit that I've been lucky. Over the last few years I've managed to pick up some right bargains, learnt some good techniques, and put together a very cheap collection of glass.
Let's start with the basics - my Canon EF-S 18-55mm IS and 55-250mm IS lenses. I use these two for 95% of the photographs i take. Lightweight, sharp, and with that ever-so-helpful image stabilisation these lenses do fine in most situations. The telephoto is sharper than the wide-angle zoom, and it's more flattering for portraits, so it's probably my favourite lens. I got the two together from eBay (in mint condition) for about £150. Not that cheap, but I've been very, very pleased with them.
The Canon 28-80mm EF was a stalwart kit lens of the Canon EOS film cameras, so you could argue that it's a little out of date, but as a back-up it's more than capable. Not the sharpest lens, and there's no IS, but stop it down to f/5.6 when wide open, or f/8 when zoomed in, and the image quality is up there with the newer lenses. I got mine for under a tenner, atatched to the front of an old film camera. It now makes a perfect back-up telephoto zoom.
The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 MK. 1 lens is undoubtedly my best ever bargain. This is the original sought-after metal mount lens with the DOF scale, but I've used the MK. II 50mm and that's a good piece of glass too. The perfect piece of kit for no-flash low light situations or shallow depth of field, my example cost me £3 from our local car-boot sale, again it came on the front of an old film camera.
The Massa Wide-Angle / Macro converter is a bit left-field. Sure, the telephoto adapter it came with is junk, but the 0.45x wide-angle filter really does work. It may be a little soft around the edges, but if you're in a tight situation and need more of an angle of view, screw the Massa on the front of your wide-angle and you're set. The macro bit works well too, and is a lot smaller and lighter than a close-up lens. The pair cost me about £12.
If you want great, cheap, macro photography, why not go down the M42 route. With a simple EF-M42 mount adapter (from eBay), some extension tubes and a nice cheap lens like the Helios 135mm, the macro world is at your fingertips. On a Canon dSLR you'll be shooting Aperture Priority, manual focus and you'll have to "stop down" to expand the depth of field, but it's easy to get used to and with enough light, a tripod or a flash, you'll get amazing shots. I got the lot for about a tenner.
Let's finish off with the longer end of the scale - my Canon EF 100-300mm f/5.6 Zoom, coupled with my Jessops 2x Teleconverter. Unlike the 55-250, this longer lens has no IS, and with the teleconverter we've lost two stops of light, so a tripod, a very bright day or a high ISO setting is required, but where else are you going to get 600mm of reach for £50?
So there we have it. A nice little set for under £250. It may have taken me a couple of years, but I'm ready for most situations and I hope I've inspired you to consider cheaper glass for your dSLRs.
Friday, April 19, 2013 at 9:11PM 
