Steve Cherrier

After reading an article on Strobist, and watching the video created by David Greene, I was inspired to head down to my local Canadian Tire store (kinda like a Walmart for my US readers who have no idea) and purchase some “studio lighting gear.”

So $60 later I came out with two 48″ fluorescent work lights and four 6500k daylight bulbs. All I had to do was insert the bulbs, hang the strips vertically on my light stands (with the handy chain supplied with the lights) and position them at 45 degree angles towards my subject. After begging my son to sit in, I snapped a few shots of him in my living room to see how it works. I also snapped a few shots of one of my cats too.

I was surprised to find that it works amazingly well. I’d want to tweak the angle and separation from the backdrop, but these photos were taken with my 50mm lens, ISO 200, f/2.8 and 1/125 shutter speed. Just some slight tweaking in Lightroom, including messing with the white balance (6500k is pretty much the “Cloudy” setting) and voila — studio lights (sorta). I might even mess around with reflecting some of the light back as well.

I’m in the studio again this weekend and it should be fun to give it a try with some models to see how it looks.