Creating a home portrait studio doesn’t require an elaborate setup or a massive budget. Whether you’re converting a spare room, clearing space in your garage, or finding a nook in your living room, there are affordable ways to transform any area into a versatile photography studio. In this guide, we’ll explore tips for building a budget-friendly home studio, from selecting simple lighting setups to creative backgrounds, and we’ll cover how to make the most of smaller spaces. With some creativity and a few affordable tools, you can capture stunning portraits right from your home. In this article, we’ll explore simple lighting setups:
Video 1 – How to Create a Home Portrait Studio for Under $20
Step 1. Find a Door
People often come up with excuses about things they don’t have that they need to get the shot, but it should be pretty easy to “knock” out this first step. Simply put: find a door. Any door in your home portrait studio should work, especially if it leads outside. We’re going to open the door and use the incoming light to create a nice, flat light pattern on our subjects.
Step 2. Get a Background
Inside of every 5-in-1 reflector, you’ll find a scrim. Grab that scrim and take it out. If you don’t already have a $20 reflector, now’s the time to buy one. It’s a useful tool and you should have one. If you’d rather not spend any money, then you can always use a bed sheet (white, black, etc.).
Either way, you’ll need to hang your scrim (or sheet or whatever) near the doorway. For this exercise, I used a chair to hold up the scrim. You can use an A-Clamp (or something similar) from Home Depot to adjust the height and hold it in place. Viola! You have a background.
Step 3. Face Your Subject Toward the Open Door
Facing your subject toward the open door will allow a nice, flat light to fall on your subject.
Step 4. Dial In Your Exposure Settings
Once your subject is in place, dial in your exposure settings. For this shot, I’m using the Canon EOS-R with a 50mm f/1.2 RF lens. However, any 50mm prime lens on pretty much any camera should yield similar results. If you don’t have a dedicated camera, we’ll go over how to do this with your phone as well.
Assuming you do have a camera and a prime lens, I would recommend shooting this with a wide-open aperture, ideally somewhere between f/1.2 to f/2.8.
Step 5. Shoot on Your Phone if Necessary
Most phones should work, and if your phone camera features portrait mode, even better – turn it on. All that’s left, really, is to zoom in and snap away.
If you look at the images above, it’s probably hard to tell which one was shot with a phone and which was shot using a dedicated camera. Most people will not recognize the difference between the images. In other words, use whatever camera you have to get the shot.
Step 5. Edit the Photo
Video 2 – Create a Home Photography Studio With Window Lighting
In this video, we’re here to show you how to create a $20 photography studio that you can use anywhere, and the best part is, you won’t need to go out an purchase new camera gear. In fact, you can even use your smartphone camera to produce quality portraits with an affordable, portable setup.
Step 1: Turn Off the Ambient Light in the Room
We began by placing our subject in front of the window with the curtains open and the room lights were on (see the diagram and image above). The lighting from inside and outside the room combined to create mixed lighting, which we want to avoid. To correct this, simply turn off the lights in the room.
Step 2: Close Down the Curtains
After we turn of the room lights, we need to minimize the light coming in through the window(s). To be clear, we still want to place our subject in front of the window and use window light, but we don’t want too much light pouring in. By adjusting the curtains, we can create a strip box of sorts, leaving only as much light as we need to get the shot.
Step 3: Use Sheer Curtains (If Possible)
If you have sheer curtains, now’s the time to use them to further soften the light coming through the window. If you don’t have them, you can always use a white bed sheet to create a similar effect.
By closing down the curtains, using sheer curtains when possible, and lowering your ambient exposure, you’ll allow less (and softer) light to fill the room. As a result, the walls in the background will get darker, regardless of what color they are. The darker backdrop will then render a rich tone that we wouldn’t get with a brighter exposure or highlights (see the image above).
Step 4: Choose Your Background
I found an affordable, hand-painted backdrop online from @backdropsbyethanalex and placed it directly behind my subject. Really, you can use anything as your backdrop: a black cloth, a piece of fabric, or even a studio backdrop.
Step 5: Add a Fill Light
I noticed that half of my subject’s face was getting lost in the shadows, so I brought in a reflector (a white poster board) to bounce light back onto my subject and fill in the shadows a bit. You might not have a C-stand at home to hold up your backdrops and reflectors, so grab a chair or employ a family member or friend to hold up the backdrop or reflector while you capture your shot.
Where you place the reflector will control the type of light you have. If you want to use the reflector to create more of an edge light, place it slightly behind your subject and angle it towards him/her. If you want to fill in more of the shadows on the face, position the reflector towards the front of the subject and angle it slightly back towards him/her.
If you compare the starting image to our properly lit portrait, you can already see much improvement. However, we can take it even further with our edit.
Step 6: Edit The Photo
Video 3 – Turn Your Garage Into a Professional Home Portrait Studio
Learn how to capture great portraits without the hassle of lighting equipment. In this video, I’ll be walking through how to turn your garage into a professional home portrait studio!
In a previous video, I demonstrated how to capture dramatic portraits in a garage by controlling the existing light. This time around, we’ll be capturing traditional style portraits by opening up the garage and creating a large soft light source for our home portrait studio. On top of that, you can create this look with any camera. I’ll be using a Canon EOS R5 with an RF 70-200mm f/2.8L as well as my iPhone.
Before we dive into the steps, head over to Instagram and give Kiara, our model today, a follow!
Step #1: Find the Right Time of Day
Our home portrait studio needs a large and soft light source. To do this, we’ll have to avoid harsh sunlight. Pay attention to where the sun is at what time of day. Schedule the shoot for when the sun isn’t directly shining into the garage or when the sky is overcast.
Step #2: Place Your Background
Place any background of your choosing about 10-15 feet deep into the garage. For this tutorial, I’m using handmade backdrops by Ethan Alex.
In just a little bit, I’ll show you how to change background exposure using subject placement.
Step #3: Choose Your Subject’s Outfit
Since we’re working with an earth-tone background for our home portrait studio, I had Kiara dress in a dark outfit with similar hues.
Step #4: Place Your Subject
This is where your subject’s distance from the light source will make a big difference. When Kiara is further from the light source, the light will fall more evenly on her and the background. However, when we bring Kiara closer to the garage opening, she’ll be more brightly lit. Then, once adjusting the exposure, the background darkens significantly.
By simply moving our subject closer and further from the light source, we can adjust how bright or dark the background is.
Step #5: Modify the Light
A bonus tip for adding drama to the scene in your home portrait studio is to add negative fill on both sides of your subject. I’m using V-Flats from V-Flat World to block out any light on either side of Kiara.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this article/video. Great natural light is everywhere and with just a few basic tools, you can quickly be on your way to taking great photos your home portrait studio! For full courses on photography topics such as Lighting with Flash and Lightroom editing, check out SLR Lounge’s Premium Library. For powerful and intuitive presets for any lighting condition, visit VF Presets.
