asking advice: I need more light for indoor portraits

[ramon]

Hello,

I am a newbie asking for help for portraits to my nephew, eight months of age who never stands still.

I shoot Tri-x 320 with 150mm lens at maximum aperture (f5.6) in the hour of maximum light in the house and this gives me a exposure between 1/15 - 1/30 seconds .... but I NEED MORE LIGHT!

I have no flash, no reflector, no strobe, and no flash meter.

I do not know anything about lighting.

What should I buy? flash? flashmeter? strobe? monolight? umbrella? reflector?

... Do you know a low cost kit for indoor portraits?

Thanks

[cyrus]

Kids don't sit still so you need to be able to shoot fast, and this means a lot of light. ALso with a lot of light you can use a smaller aperture, gain more DOF and worry less about focussing. The cheapest and quickest way for a lot of lighting indoors is to buy one of those hi-intensity halogen construction lights, and just bounce it off the ceiling or a wall (or both) to get even illumination all around a room. Then, chase down the kid and make them sit STILL!

[Brian C. Miller]

What sort of a living situation do you have?

My first thought is to put a reflector outside your house and reflect light in. Yes, there are many low-cost portrait kits. You can also get some work lights from a hardware store and use those.

[Vaughn]

As someone who has photograph his triplets boys since they were born, I recommend donkey downers to slow 'em down and a couple of puppy uppers to get them back up to speed once you are done...

Besides (or in addition to) the previously mentioned construction lamp for increasing the over-all light, I would suggest a clip-on light or two from the hardware store (always useful around the house/garage later). Position the clip-on(s) to get a catch-light in the eyes (reflection of the light source off the surface of the eyes) -- this gives a sense of life to the whole face.

[ramon]

cyrus, those halogen looks very good. Low cost and semi-portable.

Brian, I live in a flat so I cannot put the reflector outside.
The reflector option is which I liked more, because I prefer natural light.

Vaughn, the eyes reflection is a very good trick. I will try.

Thanks all!

[John Koehrer]

#5
If you have a window, you can put the bottom edge of the reflector on the window sill and tilt the top outward to catch some additional light. A simple cord or chain can be fastened to the window frame to hold the angle.
It's not likely to work if there's a breeze blowing though.

[Daniel Moore]

You may want to consider pushing Tri-X 400 one stop, that could conceivably do it. Refer to the data sheet for specifics.

[Jim Michael]

The Arri Lighting Handbook has some lighting diagrams that you may find useful. There is a video series, The Power of Lighting, that would probably be worthwhile. I would view that series before spending any serious money on lighting equipment (the one on filtration is mainly useful for mixing light sources for color film/video/digital). You can do quite a bit with a shop light and a piece of foam board.

[Peter De Smidt]

I'm going to agree with Jim. Spend some time learning about lighting before you spend any money. Light, Science and Magic is a good book, but I'm sure there are others, such as the one's Jim mentioned. You might also check out Strobist.com . Kelbytraining has some good video tutorials on lighting. You can do a lot with one light source.

[Frank Petronio]

Shoot with a digital in low light and save the 4x5 for good light.

Those hot lights are fine for many situations but with running, wild children they can be dangerous. They get hot enough to cause severe burns. And even with 1/250 second, you still will have a difficult time stopping a moving child with a 4x5 and keeping focus where you want it. I've been doing this for years myself and while it can be a fun exercise, I know that the ratio of wasted film versus successful images is something like 100 to 1.