Basic Equipment
by A.B. Russell
eBay Staff Member

Editor's Note: This is the second installment of a series covering basic photography equipment. To read the first article in this series, click here.

In the last few issues of the Chatter, this column has focused on gathering the basic gear for photography. There are just a few more pieces of gear that we're going to need before we begin photographing.

As I have before, I'll keep these ideas as simple and inexpensive as possible. Remember, though, that the photographers who make images for large companies spare no expense when it comes to their equipment.

While you can spend a lot of money on light modifiers (things like soft boxes, reflectors and umbrellas), you can generally use fairly common items in place of the high-priced ones. Instead of a photographic reflector (I think the word photographic is an excuse to charge more money), you may be able to use a sunscreen for a car windshield. In most cases, you'll want to use the foil kind with the dull side reflecting the light.

Rather than spending up to $400 or more for a soft box, you can effectively soften the light using a layer or two of tracing or butcher paper. You'll want to test the material you're using, as these papers aren't always pure white. Sometimes you'll get a blue cast on your image. This can be dealt with by white balancing with digital or a filter with film.

If you're shooting small items, you'll want some backgrounds. Keep them simple, particularly at first. A large piece of black or white cloth will do the job. As we go on, we'll discuss other backgrounds, and we'll also talk about backgrounds for larger items. For our purposes right now, though, the cloth will be fine. It should be considerably larger than the item you're going to photograph. You can always fold a large piece of cloth to make it smaller, but you can never make one that's too small big enough (without a lot of extra work).

There is one other thing I always recommend, and I don't suggest skimping here. A good tripod is one of the very most important parts of making technically excellent photographs. I sometimes say that you should never handhold your camera at a shutter speed longer than a nanosecond. That's an exaggeration, of course, but camera motion can ruin an otherwise excellent photograph.

It's about time that we began making some images. Next month, we'll discuss a simple setup and some variations on that theme.

See you then.