If you’ve never watched a video by the folks over at COOPH - the Cooperative of Photography - you’re missing out.
They do all sorts of cool things related to photography, like a tutorial on shooting the elements and tricks and hacks that help you up your photography game. Learn more about creative photography ideas at home on our website PhotographyTalk.com.
Now, COOPH is coming to the rescue of photographers that need to shoot product photos but don’t want to spend a ton of money on a pre-made studio.
The solution?
Build a DIY home studio on a shoestring budget, that’s what!
No matter if you have small, medium, or large products to shoot, COOPH shows you how to construct a suitable studio that will make those products shine in your photos.
Small Subjects
Key to the DIY studio is a simple and consistent backdrop, like the orange wall pictured above. Even a piece of paper will suffice as a backdrop for a small product.
And when it comes to lighting, you don’t need anything fancy. Just a regular desktop light will do the trick! If you want to modify that light, just affix a piece of colored plastic to a picture frame, and voila, you’ve got a DIY color filter.
If you don’t want a color effect, just use regular, everyday wax paper instead. Affix it to a picture frame and you’ll get nice, even lighting that perfectly illuminates your subject.
Medium Subjects
As the scale of your products increases, so too does the size of the studio.
That doesn’t mean that it’s still not incredibly easy to create a DIY space.
Instead of using a simple desktop light, position your product near a window to capitalize on natural lighting. Instead of using a piece of construction paper as a backdrop, scale up to a roll of colored paper.
Add in some fill lighting by making your own reflector - just tape aluminum foil to a poster board to bounce more light onto the subject. The results aren’t bad at all!
Large Subjects
If you think a DIY home studio for large subjects is difficult to do, think again.
All you really need is a plain wall to give the background of the shot a consistent look. Then, create a softbox out of a plastic bucket, a table lamp, and some wax paper.
It might not look like much of a setup, but as you can see in the video below, these DIY lights work wonders.
In fact, each of the techniques outlined above garners surprising results! Check them out and learn more details about how to build a DIY at home photography studio from COOPH.