It’s been a little over a month since I have made the jump to the rank of entry level DSLR with the recent purchase of Nikon D5000, and I have to say I am very pleased with the result I have been able to achieve with the Nikon D5000 so far. Some of the photos I have taken with my dollfie daughters outdoor were quite a bit better than what I was able to achieve with my old Sony DSC-F707. However, indoor photo has remained to be a challenge up to this point. With the weather turning cold, it has become increasing unlikely that I can take my dollfie daughters outside again this year. So it was time to finally invest in a continuous light umbrella set.
Updated this post to include the 2nd part of the upgrade where I fine tuned the white balance setting
Indoor Dollfie Dream Photography with Lighting Umbrella Setup – Hikari Photo Studio Upgrade Part 2
I didn’t want to spend a lot of money so I was definitely looking for some sort of a bargain so I ended up picking CowboyStudio New Photo Photography Video Studio Umbrella Continuous Lighting Light Kit Set- 2 7ft Stands, 1 Mini Stand and Carry Case 
- * Two(2) professional tripod/light stands, 7 Ft Max height
* One(1) Professional Tripod/Mini Light stand, Maximum height is 2.2 Ft
* Three(3) High quality light sockets, Two(2) High quality 33″ Soft umbrellas
* One(1) High Quality Carry Case
* Three(3) 45 Watt 5500k daylight balanced photo light bulbs
The kit actually arrived several days ago but one of the daylight bulb was dead on arrival, I contacted the shop Cowboy Studio and asked for a replacement bulb, they sent one to me without asking a second question, good service. And here we have a couple of photos with different light setup and white balances:
The first one here was taken with flash, Aperture was f/18, Shutter was 3 seconds, ISO = 200. The color temperature was tweaked to 5400K. This picture is only here for comparison sake.
Now that was before I got my light kit setup, so now let’s take a look at the same shot with the continuous light kit!
With the continuous light in place, obviously I am not firing the flash anymore. I kept the aperture the same while tweaking the shutter to 1/1.6, ISO = 200, white balance on auto.
The color temperature seems to be on the “cool” side of things so I experimented with some setting and tried to set white balance to Day White fluorescent.
The color turned a bit warmer but I am not sure if that’s the right color either. All in all, I am quite satisfied with the performance of this light kit. The light is very uniform and I don’t have to fire to flash anymore.
This is another shot taken with auto white balance Aperture f/29, Shutter 1.6s.
Let see what else do we have here for experimental shot…. oh there you are!
Griffon Enterprise Airi arrived two days ago and is the first new figure got to try out the new lighting system, does it sounds like I am giving preferential treatment to Airi?
And couple other random shots, grabbing a few of my favorite figurines…
I am sure I still have a lot to learn to improve my indoor photography, feel free to leave any comments and suggestions.
Another new upgrade I should like to discuss is the software I began using recently, Camera Control Pro 2 by Nikon. It’s a really neat software that allow me to control my D5000 from the comfort of my desk! I have always dream of being able to see the picture at full scale while taking the shot, but now it’s no longer a dream!
The pictures are instantly sent to my computer via the mini-usb connection so I can look at the picture at full scale right at the comfort of my desk. This feature has helped me tremendously, especially for Dollfie Photography, where a slight turn of the head can make a world of difference in the shot.
Here are some screen shots of the control
Hopefully with all the new upgrade, I can improve the quality of my indoor photos in the not so distance future.
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Nice set up. What you can’t adjust, you can fix with photoshop. ^^
Not a huge fan of fixing my photo with photoshop since it is too subjective and could lead into inconsistency. I would much rather doing all the adjustment ahead of time and do small scale processing after I am done.
One definite advantage of getting it right in-camera: the less messing in Photoshop to rescue that shot you dearly wanted to turn out but didn’t get to your satisfaction, the better. I still have SCALE 9x photos to Photoshop. Another thing that can be said about this too: with the tethered workflow you don’t have to wonder “now which SD card did that photo wind up on?”
You have the lighting facing away? Usually when I try to take pictures I face the Umbrellas toward the item. I used to try and fuss around with a reflector I had purchased, but I could never get the positioning a way that made a noticeable difference in the pictures. I’m probably going to head out to the fabric store this weekend and pick up enough fabric for a background for Beato.
Depends on the amount of light I want in the photos, sometimes I do change the orientation. Normally 45 degrees toward the subject is the best.