5 Clamps and Brackets Every Studio Shooter & Strobist Needs

Technique Tuesday 5 clamps and brackets.jpg

What even is a ‘studio shooter’ today? Years ago it was a little easier to define, but due to us having tons of heavy, cumbersome lighting and cameras, we were all pretty grounded in the actual home-base of a studio. Today though, the vast majority of my own jobs are not shot in my own space. I shoot wherever I’m needed and whether that be in a home, an office, hair salon or even another hired studio, I’m always on the move.

The clamps and brackets I’m about to run though in this article are great for all types of studio shooters, and although they will be ideal for those of you who may never shoot outside of your own controlled space, many of these items will be invaluable to those of you, who like me, need to carry, assemble and breakdown their studio setups regularly in a multitude of spaces.

With this run-and-gun shooter in mind, many of these clamps and brackets are great solutions to a multitude of problems that may occur thanks to shooing in small spaces or with limited time constraints. How can we substitute a boom-arm on the go? How can we quickly put a background up here, or hold a reflector if we’re shooting solo?

One thing is for certain though, you will NEVER regret purchasing these clamps and brackets. The longer you own them, the more uses you will find for them.

I guarantee these brackets will outlive your camera, your lenses and even your lighting. You will never get rid of them, you will only buy more of them.

My Mini-Boom

Before you run off to search for that online, hold on. You won’t find anything by searching ‘mini-boom’ and I’ve accidentally mislead people in the past by calling it that, and although that’s what I almost exclusively use it for, that’s not what it’s technically designed for. This little bracket has a million and one names online, but it’s mostly used to hold an umbrella.

The bracket is designed to sit atop a light stand just beneath your strobe and hold the umbrella reflector in place. I’ve never used it for that purpose though, instead I use it to get symmetrical lighting on my subject by offsetting my key light on my light stand. Take a look at the examples below to see what I mean.

Setting this up takes 2 seconds and all you need to do is, firstly ensure your bracket is set to a 90 degree angle and then attach it to you light-stand before you attach your light. You will need to be mindful that this will now put the centre of gravity of your stand and light off to one side, so either weight down the base of the light-stand or at least make sure you’re using a light-stand with a wide leg spread.

As we can see in the left hand image above, this is what a normal light on a light stand looks like. On the right though, we have attached our right-angle bracket/mini-boom-thing first, and then attached the light to that. We now have our light moun… — As we can see in the left hand image above, this is what a normal light on a light stand looks like. On the right though, we have attached our right-angle bracket/mini-boom-thing first, and then attached the light to that. We now have our light mounted at a right angle and we can now shoot underneath it giving us some beautiful symmetrical lighting.

In this image here we can see that the light is off to one side (see bottom shot) so that we can get the light stand out of the way to take the shot. Look at the shadows on the models right side, see how they are more pronounced and our lighting is … — In this image here we can see that the light is off to one side (see bottom shot) so that we can get the light stand out of the way to take the shot. Look at the shadows on the models right side, see how they are more pronounced and our lighting is not symmetrical.

In this shot, the lighting is far more symmetrical due to us having our light directly in line with the subjects nose (see bottom shot and how the beauty dish modifier is in the centre of the shot). As a result, we now have more even shadows on both… — In this shot, the lighting is far more symmetrical due to us having our light directly in line with the subjects nose (see bottom shot and how the beauty dish modifier is in the centre of the shot). As a result, we now have more even shadows on both sides of the face.

Where to buy

You’ll find a variety of these brackets available online, but whether you get them via the link I've provided here or not, I highly recommend you get a sturdy all-metal one if you’re planning on using it as a mini-boom like me. We’re not really using it as intended, so a weaker one will likely buckle under the weight of mounting a strobe and modifier on its side.

Tiltable Umbrella Bracket from Essential Photo - Click here to go to the website

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Crab Clamps

These little fellas are far more lightweight, and although they don’t have one specific task, I ordinarily carry a few of these on every shoot as they will invariably come in handy for any number of tasks. Whether that be holding up fabric to flag something out, hold up objects to use as gobos or more commonly, to hold up large white or black sheets to either bounce or prevent stray light.

All crab clamps should have two holes on the reverse. A 3/8” and 1/4” screw hole that will enable you to use them with both light-stands and tripods.

The key feature for me, is that they can screw on top of your light-stands and then clamp shut around things. If I’m shooting on location, the crab clamps are usually used in conjunction with a crossbar so that I can suspend sheets of black velvet up to limit the bounce of light.

The crab clamps have a 3/8” screw attachment point that means you can use them in conjunction with tripods to hold reflectors.

More importantly for me though, the crab clamps also have a 1/4” screw hole that means they can be attached to the top of your light-stands.

Simply screw the crab clamp atop your light-stand and then use a crossbar in conjunction with it to hold fabric for backgrounds or as negative fill like I’m doing here with a large sheet of black velvet.

In this setup, I’m using ‘negative fill’ to add some contrast to the sides of my subject. The extra shadows will give more shape and depth to the subject and it’s easily achieved by adding in those large sheets of black velvet either side of the mod… — In this setup, I’m using ‘negative fill’ to add some contrast to the sides of my subject. The extra shadows will give more shape and depth to the subject and it’s easily achieved by adding in those large sheets of black velvet either side of the model. If you were in a studio, you’d simply use two large black sided poly-boards either side, but on location (I’m shooting in the clients salon here), large sheets of easily portable black velvet is quick to setup thanks to the crab clamps.

Where to buy

Again, whether you pick these crab-clamps up here at Essential Photo or not, try to find ALL metal ones. I’ve bought cheap ones off of eBay in the past for example and the handle section wasn’t all metal so just started spinning freely when any pressure was applied to it. An all metal version like this is what I have now and is far more durable.

Crab Clamps from Essential Photo - Click here to go to the website

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The Super Clamp

This heavy-duty clamp is extremely versatile and although a little pricier than other clamps, one or two of these is all you need for most shoots. This clamps strengths is that it can clamp onto almost any surface or pole in the studio and with its jaws being usable on objects from 5m to 50mm, there really isn’t many things it can’t be used for.

For me though, its true power comes from just how sturdy this thing is. It’s all very well to use a small clamp to keep something in place, but when you really need to absolutely lock something down tight, the Super-Clamp is always the go-to option.

If you’re not sure what properties make the Super-Clamp useful, then beyond its versatile jaws, its ability to take a standard lighting spigot is huge. From here, we can then attach any number of other brackets, but more importantly lights.

Take a look at one of my popular uses for a Super-Clamp below as I use it to attach a fill-light directly to my key-light stand.

Here you see me using the super-clamp to attach my fill light directly to the key light stand. This not only saves a lot of floor space, but it also keeps your setup perfectly in line.

There are many benefits to setting up ‘clam-shell’ lighting like this. Firstly, you don’t need a floor stand to attach the fill light to. That also has the added benefit of not needing to fight for floor space either. The gaggle of light-stand legs is often bad enough, but by using the super-clamp like this, we free up a lot of room. Secondly; having the fill light attached to the key light like this simultaneously acts as a ballast for the key as well. This whole setup is rock solid and we can move the entire thing around by just moving the one stand. Plus, both lights are always kept perfectly in line and with them both on the same axis, you never have a situation where your fill light is off to one side compared to your key.

There are many, many ways to use this Super-Clamp (presently I have one clamped to the back of my desk holding a light in position for my webinars) and from holding up backdrops to suspending lights up high, if you need a heavy duty and rock solid solution to holding something somewhere on set, the Super-Clamp is always the answer.

Where to buy

I’ve had my Super-Clamp for years and it looks a little different to this one here. One thing to check, is if they come with a ‘spigot’ (I talk about spigots later in the article if you’re not sure what I’m referring to). Having a spigot is crucial as you need that to connect it to lights. The Essential Photo one has one here, plus it also has a square wedge. This is great if you just want to use your clamp on flat surfaces and not just round poles.

Super Clamps from Essential Photo - Click here to go to the website

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The Clip-Clamp

That’s not it’s real name, but that’s what it’s called here at the studio because that’s essentially what it is. The clamp is really just a very heavy duty spring-clamp that can hold a variety of (usually flat) objects like reflectors for example.

I have a few versions, but my one here doesn't actually have a spigot already attached to it. I recommend you get one with the spigot as part of it as that’s usually pretty vital for it to work and I’ll link the appropriate one down below.

Having that spigot sticking out of the side means that you can use it in conjunction with other clamps and brackets, namely the mini-boom thing, and the Super-Clamp both work well with it too.

If I’m being honest, this is probably the clamp I use least, but thats not to say that I don’t use it for other aspects outside of studio work. As I write this, I’m using two clip-clamps next to me on my desk. One is clamped to the desk holding a microphone and the other is clamped to the desk holding a camera monitor. As with many clamps, they are extremely versatile and you’ll always end up using them for something. But when I do use them whilst shooting, it’s nearly always to hold a large white reflector next to the model. This, in direct contrast to the black velvet, helps add some light to the shadow side of my subject. Simply affix the clamp-clip to the mini-boom from earlier and then in turn attach that to the top of a light stand and voila, you have a portable reflector.

Here I use my clip-clamp with a mini-boom to hold a large white reflector on top of a light stand. This large white reflector can then be used to bounce in some much needed light onto the subject.

Regardless of what you use this for, you really do need to use it with other clamps for it to become useful. All the other clamps I’ve mentioned are extremely useful by themselves, but the clip-clamp really only shows its true potential when used with the others.

Where to buy

As with many other clamps and brackets in this article, there are a bunch of variation and variety among them. My one is an older one and as such needs an independent spigot to make is useful. The one here has the spigot end already attached which makes it useful straight away.

Clip-Clamps from Essential Photo - Click here to go to the website

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The Gel-Clips & Magnets

Phew! We can finally talk about gels again. You didn't think I was going to write an entire article without mentioning gels did you?! Plus, I’ve actually saved the cheapest and best clamps for last.

These little clips have saved me so much time and frustration in recent years and you’ll be pleased to know they cost next to nothing.

These clips really only have one job in the studio (yes, I’m sure you can use them for other things. Maybe even to hold stacks of paper together, but that seems like a wasted opportunity to me), and that job is to effortlessly hold your beloved gels onto your lights.

In the past when I was a heathen, mouth-breather, I used to use tape to hold gels onto my lights, but ever since I discovered this little trick, I’ve never removed a sticky, hot glob of gooey duct tape from my lights or gels ever since.

In conjunction with those little clips, you’ll also need some strong magnets…. and that’s it.

Simply clamp your little bulldog clip onto your modifier, fold back the arms, get your gel in position and then lock them in place with a couple of magnets.

Click to enlarge: This coudln’t be simpler. Attach the clip, fold back the arms and then sandwich the gel onto the light with the help of some magnets.

As I already mentioned, this is super-simple, but there are a couple of quick things to bear in mind before picking these up. I personally found that the 25mm clips were the perfect size for most situations. You’ll ordinarily be using these to affix gels to round modifiers. If the clip is too wide, it struggles to grip the smaller modifiers effectively.

The little foldback clips I use are 25mm long and I’ve found this size to be the most versatile for the lighting modifiers I use.

The other thing to bear in mind is the magnets. You’ll want a pretty strong magnet to work with these clips as they’ll often be holding multiple gels and a weaker magnet isn’t going to be able to do it. The ones I use and the ones I recommend are called ‘Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets’. They sound exciting and expensive, but they’re not. I use ones that work well size-wise with the clips and are 30mm long and 10mm wide which is perfect.

Strong magnets are imperative for this to work and the ones I use are 30mm by 10mm and are called ‘Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets’.

Say goodbye to sticky gels and modifiers and embrace this cheap and simple hack. Every photographer I’ve shown this to so far has said ‘why the hell didn’t I think of this sooner’ and I wish I had too.

Where to buy

These little items are a little harder to recommend links for as I’m sure the links will change and become outdated very quickly. Below is a couple of potential winners on eBay, but if those links are no longer valid when you check them, try searching ‘Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets 30mmx10mm’ and ‘25mm foldback clips’

Here’s a link to eBay below because Amazon doesn't need any more of your money. If it’s not still working when you get here, try searching ‘25mm foldback’ clips and you’ll surely find a bunch of options.

25mm Foldback Clips - Click here to go to the website

Here’s another link to eBay and although this link should be good for a while, eBay links change a lot over time, so if it’s not valid, just search ‘Rare Earth Neodymium Magnets 30mmx10mm’

Rare Earth Magnets 30mmx10mm - Click here to go to the website

Pro-Bonus-Tip: Spigots

You may have noticed one trait throughout the majority of the other clamps and brackets I shared, and that is of course that they all use these little metal things. These are called spigots and they are essentially the connectors between everything. The spigots are what attaches your bracket to what it is you’re renting to hold and whether that be a strobe or another bracket, they are pretty essential to the whole process.

I have a whole bunch of these that I’ve accumulated over the years and although there are a few different shapes and sizes out there, my recommendation is that you get the ones with the 1/4” thread on one end, and a 3/8” thread on the other.

Where to buy

As always, you can get these in most places. There’s really very little difference among them so you should be fine no matter what you buy. The only core difference I’ve seen is the colour and some don’t have the two different sized threads on each end. I personally recommend trying to get the ones that do have both threads though as it’ll give you more options in the future.

Spigots - Click here to go to the website

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Closing Comments

So those are my top 5 brackets and clamps every studio shooter needs. Whether I’m in the studio or not, we have what we call a ‘metal-work’ case where all of these bits are kept. As you may well imagine, this case is getting pretty heavy by now, but it does house all of the useful brackets and clamps that I’ve collected over the years. By now, that case has some obscure clamps that only get used on occasion, but the vast majority of the time we simply just use a combination of the brackets I’ve mentioned above. Plus, many of these, like the mini-boom-thing, is used on almost every shoot.

The sooner you start building your ‘metal-work’ collection, the better. And like I said at the start, I can almost guarantee these things will far outlive your camera and other tech-dependant items, so just consider them an investment.

Please note:

Although this is not a sponsored article, the folks over at Essential Photo occasionally send me gear to test and review and as such they have given me the discount code ‘HICK5-OFF’ for you guys to use on their site. It’s a storewide code and it’ll save you money on whatever you purchase there and although I don’t get commission on that code, I do get a little kick-back if you use the links I’ve provided in this article.

Thanks in advance if you choose to use them <3

Thank You

Thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and that you left here with a little more knowledge than when you arrived. If you did, then this was worth it. As always, if you have any questions or comments about any of the clamps or brackets above, then by all means fire-away in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer what I can. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next one.

Don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter to be sent all of these photo tips and techniques articles every month in case you miss one.

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Lighting Setup - My Favourite £1 Lighting Modifier

Technique Tuesday favourite 1 pound modifer.jpg

Creating visually engaging light needn’t be expensive. In fact the modifier used to take this photo was less than £1!

I’ve always been drawn to interesting looking light. The simple, soft and flat light of softboxes and other standard modifiers rarely hold my attention and I’ve often felt like that softbox lighting doesn’t exist outside of the studio. It’s always looked a little to clinical for me.

We’re shown interesting light all of the time when we’re observing daylight. Dappled light as it falls through leaves, dancing sparkles of light on water, rays of light through buildings and other structures, but we rarely try and bring that interesting looking light into the studio. In fact, many of us chase and covet this idea of ‘perfect’ light from a generic modifier and although there is certainly a time and a place for that, today I’d like to share a lighting technique that is a little more visually engaging.

I’m personally a huge fan of those aforementioned ‘textured lights’ like dappled light and water light. To that end, I’ve played around a lot in the studio by trying to bring some of that natural looking daylight indoors and I think I may have finally cracked a winning example of one such ‘indoor-daylight’ effect with this one.

What is dappled light?
If you’re not sure what ‘dappled light’ is, then imagine daylight pouring through branches and leaves and falling onto the ground. The result is a very speckled and textured light that has a lot of highlights and shadows.
I appreciate this look isn’t for everyone, but if you’re after a quick way to add a lot of visual interest and drama to your shot, this very simple setup is a great option.

Technique Tuesday Emulating Dappled Light in the Studio.jpg

I’ve actually experimented with this lighting look in the past, and previously I found that I could imitate this dappled light in the studio by firing strobes though those contemporary glass bricks.

If you missed the article, then it’s also worth a look.

Emulation Dappled Light in the Studio

So although I’ve experimented with bringing dappled light into the studio before, the glass wall technique does require you to buy a small wall of glass and erect it in your studio…. that’s not always very practical, quick or cheap!

Thankfully though, I found a similar looking light that is not only infinitely cheaper, but also a whole lot easier to setup.

I humbly introduce your new favourite £1 lighting modifier…

**The £1 lighting modifier that your studio has been missing is finally here!!!**

Yes, the incredibly astute and eagle-eyed among you may be thinking this is a simple space-blanket…. and that’s because it is.

If you have no clue what a space-blanket is, then they’re also known as emergency blankets. These silver foil blankets are carried by climbers or walkers when they are out in the mountains. If they are caught somewhere overnight, you use these blankets to keep yourself warm. The silver foil reflects up to 90% of your body heat back into you as you wait out the night, or await rescue. We used to carry these very lightweight and small blankets with us when we went climbing, and thankfully we never had to use them.

But regardless of what their intended usage is, we’re going to use one in the relative warmth and comfort of our studios to create some beautiful looking light. And we’re going to do all that for the low, low price a single £1!

Screenshot 2020-09-29 at 17.06.10 copy.jpg

Where to buy them

If you’d like to pick up a few of these space-blankets yourself, then just give them a quick Google and you’ll find plenty of them on sale in a variety of shops.

If you really can’t be bothered to do that though, there’s a direct link to the Bezos-Bank below….

Yes, I have an affiliate account on there with this link, but please, try to give your money to quite literally anybody else apart from Amazon if you can. That being said, you can get 2 blankets for less than £2 here!!!

Link: Space-Blankets on Amazon

If you’re looking to hunt around for some space-blankets yourself though, can I recommend that you look for ones that are silver. Some space-blankets are gold or have gold on one side. Try and get the silver ones if you can and if you’re about to ask what size to look for, then the ones I got were around 130cm x 210cm and that was plenty big enough. They often only come in one size though and if it’s big enough to make a human sized baked potato, then it’s big enough for your photoshoot.

The Setup

What you’ll need:

1 or 2 lights depending on how fancy you want to make it
A large reflector (but really any large board or simple frame will do)
A hard light modifier (more details on that below)
A large softbox
A couple of spare light stands or poles
And some clamps

Preparation

Get Scrunching!

First up, we need to take our pristine space-blanket out of its packet and come to terms with the fact that it will never, ever go back in there!

Once it’s out, I recommend scrunching the blanket up in a ball a few times. Doing this will result in us having far less uniform folds and lines in our blanket, and it’s this crazy pattern of creases that will ultimately give us that random pattern of light on our subject.

Frame your efforts!

So after you’ve scrunched your space-blanket up a few times, it’s now ready to be framed.

How you do this is up to you, but I personally just grabbed one of those large pop-up reflectors and used that. Alternatively, you could use any large board or even flatten out a large cardboard box. Essentially we want to support this space-blanket above our subject and we need to keep it relatively flat above them. Framing the blanket in this way makes all of that a lot easier to do.

I simply grabbed a couple of plastic clamps and attached my blanket to my reflector like you see here.

You need support!

Lastly we need to suspend this blanket above our subject.

I simply used two spare light-stands and clamped the blanket to them using small crab-clamps that in turn screw atop your light stands.

For a change, having low ceilings is a huge plus here, as we can simply pin the blanket against the ceiling. Pinning it up there not only keeps it flat, but it also stops it from sagging or flopping around.

The Lighting

The Hard

One of the key things you’ll need for this setup to work, is a hard-light modifier. I personally used my Universal Spot Attachment, but of course, if you have an Optical-Snoot, that will be fine too. Alternatively, you could use a snoot, or even a gridded reflector head, and if you’re really struggling to find a hard light modifier, one of the hardest light sources out there is a simple speedlight, so you could just use that and it’ll work great too.

Hard light modifiers come in many forms, and although the optical snoots and universal spots are likely the best option, you can still try this setup with snoots, grids and even speedlights. The harder the light, the better.

The Soft

I personally opted to use a second light in this setup to take away some of the deep, dark shadows that was produced by the hard light. Although this second light is not a necessity, it can give us some flexibility in the final look that I will explain later.

The soft light I used was just a large softbox and mine here is around 120cmx 90cm. Any large softbox will do though and even if you don’t have a large one like I’ve mentioned, just bring it as close to the model as you can and it’ll still do a great job of filling in the shadows.

The placement

We’ve only got two lights to worry about so the setup itself is pretty simple. I had the model a couple of feet away from the wall, the reflector with space-blanket was pinned to the ceiling just in front and above her, and the two lights were actually fairly close.

One thing you’ll notice in the diagram below, is that the hard light is actually behind me and pointing up above my head. The light from this modifier hits the space blanket on the ceiling and then bounces back down onto our model. It’s this process that creates the slightly mottled and distorted shadows we see on the background thanks to the creases and folds we made in the space-blanket.

The big softbox is just to my left and that is flooding the scene in a very low light to fill in some of the harsh shadows. We’ll talk more about this softbox power below.

As you can see from the diagram above, this setup can even be achieved in very small spaces too. In fact the low ceiling of a home studio actually helps us here as we’re pinning the reflector and space-blanket against it.

What are you looking for?

Once you’ve set everything up, fire off a few shots of the wall to see if you’re getting the dappled light look. Take a look at my shots below and you can see the sort of effect I was getting. Also bear in mind that in the images below, I have not yet turned on my fill light so the shadow areas are still quite dark.

Although this is a simple setup, there are still a bunch of modifications you can make to get a variety of looks. Play with raising the height of the hard light, move it closer and further away from the space-blanket and potentially purchase a couple of extra blankets and experiment with different amounts of creases and wrinkles.

Just because this a relatively simple lighting setup, it doesn’t mean you can’t play with and add a lot variation with this base technique and there is a whole host of elements and colours you could add to this to make it unique.

The results

Take a look at the images below to see how the shots turned out from this setup.

Click on any of the images above to enlarge them.

Featured model: Bodil Hareid

Things to try…

As I mentioned above, the setup itself is fairly straightforward, but we still have some flexibility with how our final image will turn out by adjusting the powers of those two lights independently.

Take a look at the two shots below. On the left we have an image where we have the fill-light power (the softbox) turned way down low. As a result, the shadows in this shot are a lot darker and more pronounced. But, in the right-hand image, we have the softbox power turned up so that the darkness in the shadows is far more minimal.

The image on the right has a far brighter fill-light than the image on the left. Don’t be afraid to play with these two lights and their power levels.

The Raw is only the halfway point!

Because I know that many of my articles get shared beyond the confines of my own website, I know there are some people out there who don’t necessarily believe in the merits of post-production in photography. Those luddites are likely already hammering their keyboard keys through their treehouse desks in the comments section, but if you are about the post-production, below I will share the back-of-cam shots and even a screen grab from Lightroom so that you can see my process.

The un-pretty, the bad, and the good. My raw on the back of the camera, the Lightroom edit and then the final Photoshop edit.

Yes, I have heavily adjusted the white balance, contrast and saturation in post-pro to get the look I was after. I personally see the raw file as only the half way point in the creative process and because of that, I shoot with the final image in mind and not the raw.

What do I mean by that? Well it means that I often shoot quite flat (minimal contrast) in camera so that I have the maximum amount of data to play with in post-pro. As a result, I am able to push my raw files quite aggressively with very little, if any, breakup. If you’ve ever seen the rushes (raw footage) of movies, you’ll know that is exactly what they do as well.

Shooting with the end in mind will take time to get used to, but having an idea of how you want that final image to look is key. After all, you can’t shoot with the end in mind if you don’t know how you want the final shot to look.

Good Luck!

As always, good luck with your shoots and I hope you have fun playing with this setup. Hopefully you can develop and add to it in your own way, but if you’d like help or advice on some of your images, then by all means check out my Jake Hicks Facebook Page community where I do free image critiques of community images every Monday via my -Share-a-Shoot-.

See you there :)

Also, if you’re looking for more dynamic and visually engaging lighting setups for small spaces and home studios, feel free to check out my BIG Studio Lighting in small Spaces workshop.

P.S. I just know someone is gonna ask me if they can use tinfoil instead…. no you can’t ;) Get a space-blanket. It’s a quid!

Thank You

Thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and that you left here with a little more knowledge than when you arrived. If you did, then this was worth it. As always, if you have any questions or comments about the lighting setup above, then by all means fire-away in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer what I can. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next one.

Don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter to be sent all of these photo tips and techniques articles every month in case you miss one.

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Are You Still Chasing 'Perfect' Colour?

It's my belief that colour is actually one of the most subjective elements that we as humans all understand, yet we actually have no real way of enforcing or translating it to one another.

Think of colour like a language. I may say the word 'Red' to you and you will have an idea of what I mean, but it’s still extremely vague.

Maybe I could say the words 'Deep Blood Red'. Now we're getting closer to talking about the same colour, but we're still far from us both talking about the exact same colour.

To be more precise then, I could use the term #b90012. This is the exact hex code for a colour that's part of an entirely fabricated language. With this new made up language, we can now communicate exact colours to one another..... or can we?

The issue I have here is that you and I will see different versions of those reds. We'll never know how different, but each individual human has their own understanding of colour that is unique only to them.

Remember, a colourblind person doesn't know they're colourblind until someone else tells them they are.

Colour is utterly subjective and ultimately relative to the individual and colour only has relevance when we want to interact and communicate with one another.

I'll bring you back to the language analogy from earlier. I could say the hex number b90012 to you in a northern Irish accent and you could say the same b900012 colour in a south London accent. It's the same colour, but they're still unique in a personal way to the individual. Colour is unique to you and your interpretation of it.

But so what?

This topic of defining colour originally started rattling around in my head many years ago. What is this ‘accurate colour’ our photographic industry keeps telling us we need to achieve?

We’re told that we should aspire to some predefined version of perfect colour in our images, but I’m just gonna come out and say it, ‘this is a fools errand’.

Spoiler Alert: Perfect colour doesn’t exist!

It’s totally understandable for you to want get accurate colours in your shots, but I would urge you to consider not only why you want them, but more importantly, what that looks like when you achieve it.

We’re told to ensure we use a grey card or even a colour checker when we shoot. We’re told to check our white balance to ensure the most ‘natural’ tones. We’re told to constantly check the colour calibration of our monitors and we’re told that we should edit our images in a colour-neutral colour space. Do all this and we’ll have ‘perfect colour’ for sure, right?

Sadly no. Remember, perfect colour simply doesn’t exist.

I’m sure I’ve already triggered a few of you and trust me, this is not my intention. My only goal with this article is to try and encourage you to relax a little when it comes to chasing this ‘perfect colour’.

It’s my belief that this fools errand of chasing colour accuracy is a recent phenomena too, one that is likely perpetuated by commercial sales rather than a desire to hone our craft. You’ll no doubt have noticed that spending money is often the only sure-fire way to fix poor colour and this doesn’t stop with grey cards, colour checkers, monitor calibrators and so on.

Baron Kelvin

So where do some of these illusions of perfect colour come from?

One huge area we’re told to constantly monitor as photographers is white balance. White balance is adjusted within our cameras via Kelvin, but let me briefly introduce you to where Kelvin actually comes from.

Note: I’m going to give you some very broad strokes of Kelvin here. If you’re interested in the finer details, I’d urge you to research its history further.

In the mid 1800’s, Scottish physicist William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin was the inventor of the Kelvin Scale.

The Kelvin scale was brought about as a thermodynamic scale as although you and I commonly use Celsius and Fahrenheit to measure temperature, physicists were after a temperature scale that didn’t have negative numbers. As you know, both Celsius and Fahrenheit have minus values and negatives play havoc with math, so Baron Kelvin brought about the Kelvin scale that started at absolute zero and worked its way up from there (absolute zero is the absence of all heat at -275.150 Celsius and therefore the true baseline for all temperature).

Temperature of Light

Here is where Kelvin dips its toe into the photography world as we use the temperature of light in our cameras to record the world around us, but what does Kelvin have to do with it? You’re probably very familiar with the image below, but if not, the spectrum of colour shown is the Kelvin scale as we know it in relation to white balance. On the left we have the very warm colour of a candle and the right we have the cool colour of blue sky.

Kelvin has nothing to do with photography

But what do those pretty colours relate to? Well, Baron Kelvin came up with this scale by simply burning a block of carbon! You see at the lower temperatures, carbon glows orange and then as the temperature increases the carbon glows a whitish colour and then ultimately blue.

Kelvin really has nothing to do with photography and we stole the thermodynamic Kelvin scale for ourselves.

Well, we almost stole it, in fact William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin was recruited around 1899 by George Eastman to serve as vice-chairman of the board of the British company Kodak Limited, affiliated with Eastman Kodak. The rest is history, but this is how we now have a thermodynamic scale as a way of measuring colour temperature in our images today. It was certainly never developed for us and it’s far from accurate in any sense of the word. Don't believe me? Read on.

Kelvin is not a universal scale

My aim with this article is to try and highlight some of the difficulties in trying to achieve ‘perfect’ colour. We’re often told by YouTubers and photography brands that white balance is key to accurate colour, well I’m here to show you that although this is somewhat true in theory, the reality is very different.

What do I mean by this? Take any other scale or measurement, let’s say 10Kg or 32 degrees Celsius for example. You and I are talking the same language and we know exactly what that means to each other. Now let’s take the Kelvin (or colour temperature) value for sunlight or tungsten, hell why not flash photography too. What values do we say to one another?

Not sure? Well you’re not alone because below is what two of the worlds largest camera manufactures say to one another about Kelvin…

If unsure of what you’re looking at, the above diagram shows you what Canon and Nikon cameras have set as part of their white balance presets. So for example; if you set your Nikon camera to the Tungsten white balance preset, it’ll set your cameras Kelvin value to 3000K. But if you do the same on a Canon camera, your camera will be set to 3200K.

In fact looking at this, apart from daylight and a cloudy day, two of the largest camera manufacturers in the world don’t agree on any of the other Kelvin settings for any other lighting conditions.

My point here is not to say that Canon or Nikon are right or wrong, but it goes a long way to proving my point that the Kelvin scale is a shoehorned way of measuring colour that has no right or wrong. You’d simply be a fool for trying to achieve perfect colour with this method.

Where does this leave us?

At the start of this article I discussed a fairly philosophical and abstract version of understanding colour. Our eyes change as we get older and we see the world in hues of blue as babies and then in far warmer tones as we get older. Your eyes and perception of colour is unique to you thanks to other factors like semiotics and personal experiences, but colour is also arbitrary when it comes to elements like white balance and Kelvin too.

Look at the three images below. They are all taken on the same day and of the same model, but look at the individual Kelvin values for each them. Yes I am using gels and this is obviously and extreme example, but had I been playing by the rules, I would have set my Nikon camera to 5400K as I was using flash lighting in my shots. Never be afraid to play with colour in your images and that can often start with the white balance and Kelvin adjustment.

Remember; there is no ‘correct’ white balance.

Don’t get me wrong, we all want to improve colour in our photography and although this topic of what defines ‘better’ colour is a subject for another day, there are certainly rules that you can follow which will allow you to achieve cleaner colours at least.

But what if you couldn’t see colour?

Not too long ago I had the pleasure of interviewing and discussing this idea of ‘accurate’ colours with Indianapolis photographer Bradley Michael. Bradley took beautifully colour balanced photos, even though he was completely colour blind.

And by completely colourblind, I mean Bradley Michael sees in black and white!

Take a look at Bradley’s work for yourself and considering that Bradley sees in black and white, his colour work is phenomenal. The rest of us have no excuses when it comes to sloppy colour balancing by comparison.

How does Bradley see in ‘perfect’ colour?

For his explanation in his own words, by all means check the full interview on our Podalamania Podcast (it’s episode 6), but in short, Bradley uses the Photoshop colour picker to read off the RGB number values. If he sees a skin tone has too much green in the G value, he adjusts the colour accordingly until he gets the value he knows from experience to be ‘correct’. Of course that ‘experience’ is derived from other people advising him on what looks good, so even Bradley is beholden to other peoples perception of ‘accurate’ colour.

Bradley use the colour picker in Photoshop to adjust colours based on experience.

What I find most fascinating about Bradley’s way of working is his ability to colour tone like this. Look at one of Bradley’s recent images above. On the right is the final colouring that he’s chosen and shared (I’ve only posted the exaggerated left hand green image for illustration purposes). Now this isn’t ‘accurate’ colour, but it’s a beautifully ‘warm’ rendition of what the scene actually looked like. Bradley isn’t going for accuracy here, he’s going for what he knows the mood of the image calls for.

It’s not about achieving perfect colour, in fact it’s not even about achieving accurate colour, it’s about what looks best for the final image.

If you’d like to see more of Bradley’s work then you can find his Instagram here.

Closing thoughts

So I appreciate this weeks article has been a little conjectural and not specifically grounded in tangible dos and don’ts, but I did want it to at least get you to stop and think about your way of processing colour.

I’m sure we all love taking our time on colour management, only to see people viewing our work with ‘Night-Shift’ enabled!

Yes, colour is extremely important in imagery and it plays a fundamental role in how your images are perceived. But what I want you to take away from this is the understanding that colour is used in photography to tell a story and I want you to use your personal judgement a little more when it comes to choosing that final colour.

Don’t get too bogged down by the grey card and colour calibration crap. Yes, you can use the grey card if you like and yes, you can calibrate your screen. But, just as you wouldn’t buy a brand new car and take it straight to the mechanic, go easy on fussing over what that screen calibrator is telling you. You’ve spent a ton of money on a decent monitor, its probably pretty damn good out of the box.

Of course there will be times to calibrate all of this, but that is usually only applicable when you have complete control of the process. For example, printing from home. Yes you will need to calibrate your monitor and your printer so that they are speaking the same colour language. Doing so will always produce better results.

But, don’t waste time micromanaging individual Kelvins in a shot when some heathen, barbarian monkey-banger is going to look at your shots with the damn Night Shift function enabled!!!

In a recent commercial shoot of the director of Benny Hancock, portraits were required. The skin colour here is not ‘perfect’ or ‘accurate’, but I’m selling a lifestyle with the chosen warmth of the image and the client loved it. At no point did the… — In a recent commercial shoot of the director of Benny Hancock, portraits were required. The skin colour here is not ‘perfect’ or ‘accurate’, but I’m selling a lifestyle with the chosen warmth of the image and the client loved it. At no point did the client ever mention that the colour isn’t ‘accurate’.

So instead of banging your head against the wall whilst chasing that ever elusive ‘perfect’ colour, instead, start building a personal perception of colour.

You can start by having a little more faith in what you believe to be the best colour for the image in front of you, not what’s perfect or even accurate according to a machine.

I promise you, apart from a few niche areas of photography like product shots for catalogues for example, perfect colour is far less important than you might think. In fact with portraits and fashion, so much is about selling a feeling or a lifestyle, not reality.

It’s with this in mind that we can relax our preconceived ideas of what colour should look like from a physicists point of view, and instead concentrate on what colour should look like from an artists point of view.

Thank You

Thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and that you left here with a little more knowledge than when you arrived. If you did, then this was worth it. As always, if you have any questions or comments about the idea of the perception of colour, then by all means fire-away in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer what I can. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next one.

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Lighting Setup: Diffused Scrim Lighting at Home

Unbelievably soft lighting is actually trickier to do than many think. Sure we can place a large softbox in front of our subject to light them, but does that really look good?

Click to enlarge: Creating realistic window light in a studio is actually far harder than we might think. — *Click to enlarge:* Creating realistic window light in a studio is actually far harder than we might think.

No, I’m not trying to trigger anyone here and I’m genuinely curious, because to me, the classic softbox look is unique look to studio-style lighting. Does that softbox light really look like daylight? If that’s the look you’re after, is a softbox really the best solution we have?

We’re taught that a softbox is designed to replicate window lighting, but it really doesn’t. Don’t believe me? I dare you to find a natural-light shooter that would ever choose a softbox modifier over an actual real life natural-light window. I’m telling you now, that’s a fools-errand.

So how do we get a more natural and aesthetically pleasing light on our subjects? How do we get a more ‘natural’ looking light? It’s this topic and problem that I’ve been trying to overcome for a very long time and although I’ve yet to find a perfect solution to the seemingly impossible task of replicating natural light in any space, I did come across a look that I liked along the way.

What makes natural light look ‘natural’?

The trick to understanding the properties of natural light is to remember that light never stops. Light just keeps going and going and it’ll (almost) always do so in straight line. The other key property of light is to remember that light loses its power (brightness) the further it travels.

Let’s look at a quick example of how that translates to us mere photographers. In the diagram below, light number 1 is the sun and light number 2 is a softbox.

We place our subject in front of the sun and in front of the softbox and then take a light meter reading at the subject. Then we take another light meter reading 100m away from the subject for both the sun and the softbox….

*I think we can all agree that drawing is a gift and not something one can simply learn….. hence why I’m a photographer.*

I’m sure my TED Talk slide above illustrates the issue. The sun is just so damn powerful that no matter how far away you are (on Earth) the power is the same, whereas the softbox loses its power almost instantly. Place your subject in front of a window you not only get that beautiful, crisp sunlight on the subject, but you also get the softer sunlight as the light is bounced around the room and landing back on the subject. This does not happen with a softbox. We expose the softbox based on it being a few feet from the subject at most and there is simply not enough power in that light to then bounce around the room and back onto the subject again. This always results in a very different looking light when trying to replicate window light with a softbox. Whether that light is good looking light or not is subjective, but let’s at least agree that it’s different.

Did you miss part 1?

It’s worth noting that this article is actually part 2. Don’t worry, you don’t have to read part 1 to understand this one, but in the previous section we discussed how to actually make a jumbo scrim for yourself using parts you can buy and assemble at home. We’ll be using that scrim to light the model in this article.

If you’re interested then by all means take a look at that original post too DIY Scrim/Silk Frame For Huge Diffused Lighting Modifier

So what’s the solution?

Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve yet to see a convincing solution to this ‘artificial daylight in a studio’ problem, but in the past, the method I’ve used to create somewhat realistic sunlight in a studio environment is to actually add another light. Big shock I know! Who would’ve thought a studio shooter would try and overcomplicate something simple with more gear! …But hear me out.

So if you recall the daylight window light properties we mentioned earlier, we need crisp, direct light as well as that diffused light that bounces around the room.

I use one strobe to create the strong, crisp lighting of the direct sunlight and then another super-soft strobe to replicate the diffused bounced light in the scene.

Light 1 - The Soft Light

So this is the light we built last week (no clue what I’m talking about? Check last weeks article on DIY Scrim/Silk Frame For Huge Diffused Lighting Modifier ). With this jumbo lighting modifier we are able to create some unbelievably soft looking light in nearly any space.

Click to enlarge: Granted, it may be tricky to make out what’s going here due to the amount white in the scene, but this is two large diffusion panels. Each panel measures 2m x 1.5m. — *Click to enlarge:* Granted, it may be tricky to make out what’s going here due to the amount white in the scene, but this is two large diffusion panels. Each panel measures 2m x 1.5m.

Light 2 - The Hard Light

This second light is the one that will be creating the shadows and shape on the subject. Here I will be using a favourite modifier of mine, the Optical Snoot. Long-time followers of mine will know that I love this modifier a lot and I use it all the time in my work, but if you’re unfamiliar with it and are interested in learning more, take a look at my review of the Optical Snoot here Optical Snoot Review.

Click to enlarge: One of my favourite lighting modifiers, is the optical snoot and that’s due to its very unique properties. If you’re not familiar with one, definitely check out my review of it to see what it can do. — *Click to enlarge:* One of my favourite lighting modifiers, is the optical snoot and that’s due to its very unique properties. If you’re not familiar with one, definitely check out my review of it to see what it can do.

The Setup

Okay, so many of you have likely skipped all the way down here and although you missed out on the answer to pi a couple of paragraphs above, I’ll put you out of your misery and explain the setup.

To explain this thoroughly, I’ll share a few potential setups with the same tools and you can then decide what look best suits your needs. For example, firstly I’ll look at just the one super-soft light. From here, you may decide that you aren’t interested in adding the hard light at all.

It’s also worth noting that I made this DIY scrim whilst bored during the great apocalypse of 2020. As a result, all of these images were shot prior to the studios actually reopening and consequently were all shot in my living room…. which is very small. My point is that the setups I’m sharing here can all be achieved in almost any space and I’ll discuss my recommendations on how to change the lighting based on the size of your space later on as well.

One Light - Super Soft

Take a look at the setup below and see how I arranged the scrim in the small room and where I placed that single light to get the look.

Click to enlarge: One light with the two scrim panels results in some incredibly soft lighting — *Click to enlarge:* One light with the two scrim panels results in some incredibly soft lighting

Here’s a look at the type of lighting this ultra-soft setup can produce…

Pay close attention to the shadows and highlights in the shots above. See how much light is actually in the shadows of this setup, even on the shadow side of the subject. Also look at how gradual the light transitions from highlight to shadow are and look again at those shadows on the models face.

But let’s take a closer look at how that one single light is placed in relation to the scrim. It may not be immediately obvious from the digram above, but the light is actually placed right next to the scrim, but more importantly, it’s pointed directly away from it. The reason for this is due to the size of the space. If we had plenty of room, like in a big studio, then we could probably move the light away from the scrim and point it directly at it. This would essentially create the same look as the light is still passing through the large sheet of diffusion, but by bouncing the light off of the nearly wall like I’ve done here, we essentially create a double diffusion. Once as the light bounces off the wall and a second time as it passes through the scrim.

Take a look again and you’ll see that the light is next to the scrim and actually pointed away from it and into the wall behind it.

Two Lights - Hard and Soft

Here is where I feel things get a little more interesting though. In the setup below I actually add a second light and this time it’s a hard light. By combining the two lights in the same shot, we get some very striking lighting on the subject.

Click to enlarge: Two lights to create a hard and soft look. — *Click to enlarge:* Two lights to create a hard and soft look.

Our first light hasn’t changed, but with the addition of this second hard light, we are now able to really carve out some shape and structure on the model and all without losing any detail in the shadows.

Take a look at some of the resulting images from this setup…

Look again at the shadows and highlights and specifically look at the very crisp and clean line created by the jaw on the neck, as well as a little pop of highlight on the nose and cheekbone thanks to the contrast of lighting.

If you are curious as to how much each of the individual lights is doing, take a look at the examples below. On the left we have just the soft light, in the middle we have just the hard light and on the right we have both of the lights combined in a single shot.

Two Lights - Gobo and Soft

Finally, we’ll look at getting a little more creative with the light by adding a gobo to the hard light modifier. Nothing else has changed in the setup though. Take a look below.

Click to enlarge: Here I’ve added a little interest to the shot by introducing a gobo to the hard light modifier. — *Click to enlarge:* Here I’ve added a little interest to the shot by introducing a gobo to the hard light modifier.

Like I mentioned, nothing changed in the actual setup beyond the addition of that gobo to the optical snoot. If you’re unfamiliar with what that is, then take a look below.

The optical snoots have the ability to take gobos. These are small discs of metal that have laser cut holes in them to shine a variety of patterns in light and shadows.

Here is a couple of examples of how this lighting setup looked below…

It should be very apparent as to what is going on here, but what I want you to pay extra special attention to is how much light is in those shadows. The beauty of this setup is the fact that I can independently control the brightness (and ultimately, the density) of these very striking shadows. Remember these are two separate lights where the power can be controlled independently of each. If I want brighter shadows, I increase the brightness of the scrim light. Conversely, if I want darker shadows, I decrease the power of the scrim light.

It’s this two light, hard and soft setup acting as one that is extremely powerful and the looks you can create with it are limitless when you add the creative element of gobos too.

If you’re interested in seeing some more shots from this shoot with a variety of lighting from the setups I’ve discussed above, here they are.

*Click on any of the images to enlarge them*

Featured model: Ryo Love

But is it window light?

I think that’s ultimately up to you to decide. Of course it depends on what window we’re comparing it to, how overcast the day is outside, the size of the window, the size and colour of the room the subject is in and so on. But however you want to look at this, I personally prefer this lighting look infinitely more than any basic softbox I’ve used. Have I cracked the ultimate in-studio replacement for the daylight look? I fear the hunt continues.

Thank You

Thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and that you left here with a little more knowledge than when you arrived. If you did, then this was worth it. As always, if you have any questions or comments about this lighting setup or even the scrim I made, then by all means fire-away in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer what I can. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next one.

Don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter to be sent all of these photo tips and techniques articles every month in case you miss one.

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DIY Scrim/Silk Frame For Huge Diffused Lighting Modifier

Technique Tuesday DIY Scrim Silk For Huge Diffused Lighting Modifier.jpg

So before the film school nerds explode, let me just explain what a ‘scrim’ actually is and what the term colloquially means to us photographers.

Technically scrims are large sheets of black woven fabric that reduce the brightness of a light when placed in front of them (these are usually constant HMI lights that don’t have individual brightness adjusters).

There are alternative large sheets of fabric that are placed in front of lights called ‘silks’ and these are actually white in colour. When ‘silks’ are placed in front of the lights, they diffuse the light and spread it over a far wider area resulting in very soft lighting. You could consider that a softbox is actually just a small silk as it has a large sheet of diffusion material in front of the light that softens it as it passes through it.

So what’s the confusion between silks and scrims?

Like I said, colloquially we photographers tend to use the term ‘scrim’ when referring to large sheets of diffusion. Theatres actually use the same wording for similar semitransparent sheets of white fabric and it may be where the confusion comes from. But rightly or wrongly, if you ask for a scrim on a photoshoot, someone is gonna grab you a large sheet of diffusion.

But regardless of whether you call your huge sheets of light diffusing fabric scrims or silks, let’s get on with article.

What does a scrim actually do?

Like I said, think of these scrims as HUGE softboxes. You place your light on one side of them and when you shine that light through them, they essentially enlarge the relative size of the light source and as a result you get extremely soft light.

Take a look at my quick example below. The top row of images is a strobe with an open reflector dish attached. The bottom row has that same open reflector dish, only this time I’ve placed the white scrim (it’s actually the diffusion that sits inside those 5-in-1 reflectors) and you can see it in the shot on the bottom left. See how the shadows and contrast of light changes dramatically between the two setups? This is what placing a simple large sheet of diffusion material in front of your light can do to your image.

Click to enlarge: The top row of images above is with a bare strobe light. The bottom row of shots has that exact same bare strobe, but this time is has a scrim placed between the light and the subject. See how the shadows on the subject change dram… — *Click to enlarge:* The top row of images above is with a bare strobe light. The bottom row of shots has that exact same bare strobe, but this time is has a scrim placed between the light and the subject. See how the shadows on the subject change dramatically with that one simple addition.

Why should I use a scrim?

This is personal preference of course, but many people like the extremely soft lighting effect a huge scrim provides. This type of lighting is also used a lot in cinema and TV as the resulting light bathes an entire scene or room in a soft light that can cover the subject as well as large areas of the set at the same time. This lighting effect looks far more natural to us when viewed on screen compared to strong directional lighting that can cause harsh highlights and deep shadows.

Below, I found a great example of a scrim being used in sunlight to diffuse the incredibly harsh sunlight. In the image we see photographer Terry White using the Westcott Scrim Jim (a professional solution to scrims) to entirely cover the model and thereby softening the light of his entire frame. I’m sure you can imagine how harsh the sunlight would be in this shot without it.

Here we have a scrim in action in sunlight. You can see how soft the otherwise incredibly hard sunlight has now become. Image from the Westcott website, photo taken by Terry White — Here we have a scrim in action in sunlight. You can see how soft the otherwise incredibly hard sunlight has now become. *Image from the* *Westcott website, photo taken by Terry White*

What will I use as my scrim?

Remember, we’re actually more concerned with making the frame for our scrim in this article. The scrim is actually the fabric that goes on the frame and you can practically use any white fabric you want as a scrim. Sure, you need to be mindful that the fabric is white and slightly translucent, but I’ve used bedsheets and even old curtains on locations as makeshift scrims in the past.

For this article, I bought some professional diffusion fabric and it’s actually far cheaper than you might expect. Here’s what I purchased below…

Use whatever fabric you like, but just be mindful of the size you purchase in relation to the frame you’re making.

Here is an Amazon affiliate link to everything I purchased for this frame and the diffusion material is included in there too.

Kit List for DIY Scrim/Silk For Huge Diffused Lighting Modifier

Yes this is an affiliate link and I will get a few grains of sand if you use it. Trust me the affiliate link is just an easy way for me to put everything together and share a single link for you. If you find any of these items elsewhere that are cheaper or better, then by all means buy them there. If you love what I do and still want to offer up a small thank you, I’d far rather you donate a small amount to me directly and get yourself a hi-res printable version of one of my books here: Studio Lighting Books

Don’t do this… The first frame was plastic. It didn’t end well.

Mistakes were made…

It’s worth bearing in mind that there’s already scores of film students who’ve made their own scrim frames. Sadly, I didn’t look at those examples and I made all my own mistakes which hopefully means you won’t have to.

Don’t believe I made mistakes? Take a look at the image included here…

I’ve already made this damn article twice as the first time I made the frame I was dumb enough to make it out of plastic pipe!!!

….it didn’t go well and the damn thing fell apart almost instantly!!!

So yeah, don’t do that. But what should you make your frame out of? In the end, I decided to make my frame from 15mm copper piping. Yes you can make it from other piping and sizes, but I wanted to use quick release connectors so I could easily assemble and reassemble my frame multiple times. More on those connects later, but that’s ultimately why I went with the 15mm copper pipe.

In the unlikely even that you can’t read Cornish, I’ve also provided the measurements in English for this frame elsewhere in the article too. — In the unlikely even that you can’t read Cornish, I’ve also provided the measurements in English for this frame elsewhere in the article too.

How big shall I make it?

This question is highly dependant on a couple of things. Firstly, how big is the space you’re planning on using it in? And how many of these panels do you want to make?

I only ended up making this scrim modifier as I was bored being stuck indoors during the great apocalypse of 2020. As a result, I made mine with the limits of my home ceiling in mind and I recommend you do the same. Secondly, I wanted to make two panels or frames, so that they could be connected together and then stand unaided like an open book would do.

Here are the measurements I used…

Each frame panel requires:

3x 150cm sections
4 x 100cm sections

Multiply that by 2 for both panels and I need 17 metres of copper pipe.

Copper pipe is pretty easy to purchase and you can pick it up from many DIY stores…. although they tend to be a lot more expensive than buying it from specialists like plumbers. 18m of copper pipe cost me less than £40.

John Guest Speedfit connectors allow you to assemble and disassemble your frame with ease if needed.

How shall I hold all the pipes together?

Do you remember me mentioning that I screwed up and bought all this in plastic pipe first? Well as a result of that wasted order, I did actually purchase a whole bunch of plastic connectors. I bought these specific connectors as they are designed to be easy to use and simply connect the pipes to them via screwing them up by hand and you’re done. I liked this option as it also means I could unscrew them and disassemble my frame and reassemble it as often I liked.

These plastic connectors are called John Guest Speedfit connectors and are definitely worth a look if you’re after a simple way to connect it all together.

You can find more info on the John Guest Speedfit connectors here: https://www.johnguest.com/speedfit/

How many connectors will I need?

For my frames I decided to brace the longer side sections with a central piece too (I highly recommend doing the same). As a result I not only needed 4x corner sections, but 2x T-joint connectors too. Here’s the outline…

I actually only needed 8 corners, but it was cheaper to buy a pack of 10 above.

Do I need anything else?

There are a couple of extra things you can pick up to complete the design and they will make your life easier too.

Copper pipe cutter

There is a bunch of ways to cut copper pipe and you could even use a hacksaw. But I will say that this little tool is ingenious, incredibly quick and easy to use, but more importantly, it actually leaves the ends of your pipes curled in slightly. This not only makes it safer with no sharp edges, but the pipes are now far easier to use with the Speedfit connectors. I highly recommend you use this cutter or one similar.

Deburrer

This one is up to you, but they cost next to nothing so I recommend getting it. All it does is sand down the edges of your pipe where you cut it via metal bristles. You are cutting metal after all so any stray edges and splinters of metal will hurt if you catch yourself on them. Simply use this tool (that is specific to the size pipe you have) on every cut section you make and you’re done.

Frame Connectors

Granted, frame connectors isn’t the name of these, but it’s what I use them for. Clip these to one edge of one frame and then clip the other side of this to the other frame and you now have yourself an open book style scrim that will stand on its own.

Frame Clips

These little individual 15mm clips are super cheap and it’s what we’ll be using to actually clip our diffusion fabric to our frame. Like I said, they’re really cheap so just buy a bunch of them to hold your diffusion fabric in place.

Assembly

Okay so we have all our parts, now it’s time to put it all together…

Once you have all your parts, you’re ready to start assembling. Tip: I used electrical tape on the ends of the two size poles to distinguish them. This just makes reassembly faster in the future when you’re holding similar length poles. — Once you have all your parts, you’re ready to start assembling. *Tip: I used electrical tape on the ends of the two size poles to distinguish them. This just makes reassembly faster in the future when you’re holding similar length poles.*

Measure and Cut

First things first, we want to lay out our pipes and measure them into the sections you need cutting.

Next you’ll simply need to cut them and if you’re using that cutting tool I recommended, a few twists around the pipe with it and you’re done.

Deburr and Sand

Next up we just want to take off any stray splinters or rough and sharp edges. Use that deburring tool on all the ends to ensure they’re free of rough edges. Then I just used the other end of that tool to clean up the ends on the outside too.

Lastly, and this is a purely cosmetic addition, but I just took a sheet of sandpaper and rubbed the whole pipe down to take the shine off. Like I said, this entirely optional and copper is very soft so it only takes a few seconds to rub each pipe down.

Connecting

With all our separate pipes cut and laid out, it’s now time to connect everything together.

If you’ve chosen the JG Speedfit connectors like I have, then here’s a few important things to remember when assembling and dissembling your frame with them.

Important: To insert the pipe into the connector, it needs to be fully unscrewed. You should notice that if this is the case then the collar at the base of the connector is snug against it. Once the pipe is inserted and the collar tightened, the collar should now be separated from the main connector housing.

The reason I mention this, is because when it comes to decouple these, sometimes the collar remains separated and the pipe will not come out. If that is the case, make sure you push that collar back into place if needed and the pipe can be removed with ease.

Tape

You are pretty much done, but there was one last thing that I did for convenience and that was to mark up the different pipe lengths with electrical tape. Two white strips for the side sections and one white strip for the horizontals. This just makes life that much easier when pulling 14 similar looking copper pipes out of a bag!

Are we done yet?

Yes we are finally all done and ready to shoot. Let’s take a quick look at the final frame constructed and with the diffusion in place.

Click to enlarge: Here we have the final form. My two scrim frames assembled and ready for the application of the diffusion material. — *Click to enlarge:* Here we have the final form. My two scrim frames assembled and ready for the application of the diffusion material.

Click to enlarge: Here I’ve attached my diffusion material to one of the frames and in the far right image we can see me connecting the two frames together with a dual 15mm pipe connector. — *Click to enlarge:* Here I’ve attached my diffusion material to one of the frames and in the far right image we can see me connecting the two frames together with a dual 15mm pipe connector.

What can I do with my scrim now?

So big congratulations are in order, you’ve finally finished your own DIY scrim frame. But what now? What can we use this jumbo diffusion panel for? Well this article is already big enough so I’ll leave it here this week, but next week I’ll share an article on how I shot the images below with my scrim….

Click any of the images below to enlarge them…

Featured model: Ryo Love

In the above shots you should be able to see some beautifully soft light as well as some harder light in there too. Next week I’ll explain how this was setup and shot because with such an incredibly soft light source thanks to this jumbo scrim, we can also seamlessly add hard light into the shot as well to create some very unique looks.

PLUS! This is actually shot in my living room! I made the DIY scrim during lockdown and I shot this before we reopened the studio, so you can even create unbelievably soft light like this in small spaces like a home studio too!

I’ll speak to you all again next week. Until then, stay safe.

For reference, here’s that link to all the products you need on Amazon:

Kit List for DIY Scrim/Silk For Huge Diffused Lighting Modifier

Thank You

Thanks for checking out this article and spending a little bit of your day with me here. I hope you found it useful and that you left here with a little more knowledge than when you arrived. If you did, then this was worth it. As always, if you have any questions or comments about the scrim, then by all means fire-away in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer what I can. Thanks again and I’ll see you in the next one.

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