Easy and Budget Set up for Home Studio Painterly Portraits

Hello everyone! It’s been awhile since I’ve written on my blog page. So for this post, I will be sharing with you some ideas about how I do my portraits indoors using a simple set up that I do on my living room, I have a video of this on my Youtube Channel, so you can go ahead and watch it there, but if you’re an avid reader, then stay here with me and let’s go!

First of all, yes I do not have access to any professional studio, I only use one light source and a cramp space, but we gotta work with what we have! And I’m telling you, you don’t need a special oven to bake a delicious cake! For years, I have been struggling on how to do the portraits that I am now able to, and surprisingly, I’ve always had the tools needed for it, but of course, I have upgraded some of it. Here are the things I use…

• A seamless paper backdrop that is in Grey colour

  • Grey colour makes it easier for changing colours in post plus it’s very handy for setting up white balance! I admit that I do forget to set white balance sometimes haha . Now you can get this in Amazon or Ebay, prices depends on size, but I got the smallest one as I’ve said, not much space available.

• Backdrop Stand, a paper backdrop can be very heavy, so you need a sturdy one, but then again, I don’t have that, I have just a simple one that I got years ago. It still works so I didn’t buy a new one.

• A reflector, to bounce off some extra lights to our subject.

• Soft box, I have the 60x60 Square one from Godox. This I used since I have started photography, but you can also get a round one which is better for eye reflection, as it will give you round light reflection which goes well with your round shape eyes rather than square.

• Light Stand

• Light source, now, this will depend on you and your budget, but this post is aiming for budget friendly set up. I own 2 kinds lights and I use only either one of them, I can say there’s not much difference in them in terms of the outcome of your images.

  • Godox TT685s, this is a small flash, perfect for travelling, you can use double A batteries or a strong external battery if you’re planning to use it for a couple of hours. What I like about it apart from its size is that you can lower the power to 1/128, not like my next light…

  • Godox MS300, now, this one is a tad bigger, more powerful light. You can’t take this outdoors unless you have a very long extension cable because you need access to a power socket, it can’t accept batteries. My favourite feature of this light, is its ‘‘Model Light’’… its a separate light from the flash that can be turned on the whole time. This helps you see where the light will be on your subject and makes it easier to do adjustments on poses etc. Godox MS300 can only go down to 1/32, and because of that, you will need the next one.

• ND8 Filter, this will give your camera 3 stops less, so you don’t end up with overexposed images. This may be optional and not needed when using the Godox TT685s.

Here is how it looks altogether

In terms of camera and lenses, I think we can all agree that when it comes to that, we can’t go budget friendly. So here are the ones I use for portraits…

• Sony A7III

• Samyang AF 35mm F1.4

  • This is the lens I strictly use for indoor portraits only because it’s the perfect focal length for what I want to create and the space that I have available, if I have a much bigger space, I will use my Samyang AF 85mm F1.4.

And that’s it! Now all you need to do is unleash your creative side and get shooting!