Building a Photo Studio From Scratch： My FIRST 7 Purchases

So I've had a photo studio for about five years now, and the truth, there's just too much ---- everywhere. And I've been thinking about starting over from scratch, new studio. And I want to share with you the seven things that I would buy first if I did, right? The pieces of gear that I absolutely could not live without. The first one would be this, my little budget tethering stand with pistol grips. Now this is like $120 product from Neewer. See, regular traditional tripods are fine, but I'm always tripping on them. And they're very one dimensional, right? It's just there to hold your camera, but they take up so much space. Now with this rolling stand, I could mount pretty much anything that I need, right? I could pack my camera, my tethering setup, everything, right? So with this rolling stand, I can make super quick height adjustments to my camera. Now, the pistol grip arms are long enough that I can fit a tethering table to accommodate my laptop. Now I don't think this stand is heavy duty enough to mount a full size computer monitor on it. I wouldn't even try it, but you can also attach smaller USB-C monitors if you want it. And I toyed with that idea, but honestly, I just didn't want to spend any extra money. So I was using my iPad and it just made more sense, right? Like some of my camera systems like Hasselblad allow me to wirelessly tether and I can do it that way. Or I can just tether to my laptop and then just screen share directly to my iPad from my MacBook if I wanted to. At the bottom of the light stand, I placed a 10 pound Manfrotto weight. Now you don't need a weight for this rolling stand, but it does shake a little bit when you're using the camera or you're moving things around. That way it helps to just kind of keep it grounded. And I even placed a Bluetooth fan at the bottom and this is great. So what I'm using it for obviously is to create movement in the model's hair and using a Bluetooth remote, I could pretty much blast little bursts of air as I'm operating the camera and that keeps me from having to just keep a fan on running the whole time and then drying out their eyes. All right, number two is the Westcott EZ Boom. Boom arms allow me to get my lights closer to my subject without the light stand actually being next to them, you know, in the shot. It also allows me to use my overhead lighting, which I'm always doing. I'm always attaching a seven foot umbrella on a boom arm and then you could also use it for key lights, right? So booms are just overall very, very useful. The ones I've been using are from Adorama. I believe I paid around $300 for them. These are good for smaller, lighter setups, but when I'm throwing on my strobe and seven foot umbrella, now we start to have some issues because without a counterweight, I can't extend it as far as I want. And then using a counterweight with this hefty setup is tricky and it's happened to me before where the whole thing went crashing to the ground when I took off the light. Now, this is why the Westcott EZ Boom is goaded. Now, for safety, this thing comes with a locking pin to hold everything in place so that when you're, let's say, making a modifier change or taking off a sandbag, this thing just doesn't go falling to the ground. Now, look at how easy it is to make an adjustment to, let's say, the height of the light. Literally takes no effort in raising and lowering it. And I'll tell you, one of the biggest pain in the ass things to do is mid-shoot, have to adjust the angle of my light, especially when I'm using a traditional boom arm and I have a seven foot umbrella. On the EZ Boom, all you have to do is just rotate the knob. With very little force, you can quickly make that height and angle adjustment to your light. This easily has to be one of the best inventions that I've ever seen for a photography studio. Speaking of the gear that is most important to me, I think that this is the perfect segue. To tell you about the most important tool that I have my hand on at least 95% of the time, and that's the Logitech MX Master 4 mouse. So I've owned multiple generations of this mouse. And with all the carpal tunnel issues that I've had in the past, this has been the most comfortable and ergonomic mouse that I've ever used. Now with the MX Master 4, they now added some new things that actually make a difference in how you work. Now you get this haptic sense panel under your thumb. And when you press it down, an actions ring pops up. And in these floating bubbles, you can access a whole bunch of different controls in any app. For example, when I'm editing in Final Cut Pro, I'm always doing a bunch of tedious things like adding titles, recording voiceovers, making random exposure, volume adjustments. So instead of bouncing around everywhere, in Final Cut Pro, I can access all of these things, all the things that I use the most by simply just pressing down with my thumb. When I'm on my desktop, I can quickly access my most used features, right? Like instantly opening up chat GBT or even starting a screen recording with a click of a button. And right away, you will notice the improved build quality. I love that they put some anti-stain silicone panels. So overall, they just made the best mouse even better. If you want to check one out for yourself, the link will be down in the description. Now for the light modifiers that I use the most, I always find myself using a 30 to 40 inch softbox the most as a main light for portraits. Now, if you're ever going to cheap out on a light modifier, I would say it would be for the studio because you're not going to be collapsing it all the time, right? And so you don't necessarily need the greatest build quality. But if you want something of quality, something that's going to last you for years and years and years, and you could take it outdoors and all right, definitely the Manny Ortiz Beauty Dish, okay? You can use it like a traditional soft light modifier, or you can use it as a beauty dish and attach that internal deflector and you can get a more sculpting quality of light. Another modifier that I cannot live without is an umbrella. And I'm using the $100 seven foot umbrella from Westcott. I made a whole dedicated video about it and why it's so amazing because it's $100. It is a really big light source, means that you're going to get really nice soft light. I love using it for, I call atmosphere lighting. I like to put it above my model, above my subject, just to fill in some of the shadows in the entire photo. I just think it's a really versatile modifier for $100. I think it's a no-brainer when you collapse it, it takes up barely any space. It's just a great freaking, for the money, can't beat it. Now my go-to little modifier that I use when I'm shooting headshots or when I want to make someone look their best. The cheat code is the eye lighter. There's just a commonality here that when I'm using it and people see the photos, they're just like, whoa, like they look good. It just adds this really nice specularity highlight, not only in the eyes, but also just like on the face. Cheat code, absolute cheat code. The next one is the optical spot. This is my secret weapon for studio work. The fact that it's not easy to use makes me love it even more because it allows my work to stand out. Now being able to control lighting so precisely that I can create like little slits of light and I'm also able to control how defined the edges are of that light. I use it all the time to create fake window light and the reality is there's just nothing else like it. If I had to start again, I need at least two different lights, two flashes. A lot of my light setups require three to four different lights, but in reality, I could probably maximize a two light setup by either using an eye lighter or like a $5 foam board from Hobby Lobby to Adfil if I need. I personally use Westcott for the reliability that I've gotten over the years and the universal trigger since I'm always shooting with different brands. Number five, this is probably the most boring but powerful studio tool and their grids, right? So being able to control light direction and reduce the light spill can literally mean the difference between a basic and a phenomenal portrait. I'm not trying, I'm not exaggerating. Like these are especially important for let's say smaller studios because it's just going to be harder to prevent from light bouncing around, okay? Now with the larger space, you can find ways, you can create enough distance between your light and your background to reduce light spill and light bouncing around and you also have more space to feather light without creating a problem somewhere else. And even then, these are just invaluable for me when I'm trying to be more intentional with my lighting and grids, grids. Obviously, I won't be able to do much without light stands. For me, if my budget allowed, I would want stands to have wheels, all of them to have wheels. It's just so much easier and they do take up less space. I also feel like no matter what, I would want at least one C-stand. You know, I would want one to hold reflectors, scrims. It's always nice having this one stand that's just got a rock solid base. I also have this small Manfrotto stand and it's such a great little tool. It's great for holding up the highlighter but also when I want to place the light behind a subject and I don't want it to be seen, you know, it's profile is really low to the ground. I can use it to as a separation light. It's just a great little stand to have. Now, this last one is very specific to me and my workflow but I need a standing desk in my studio and it's not for me to work on or to edit on but it's something for me to, you know, it has a dual purpose. So, for my product shots, I have a slider on a single tripod and instead of having to raise and lower that tripod to get different kind of shots, I can just raise and lower my standing desk and I can quickly get more, you know, lower angle shots or high angle shots really, really quickly and then at the same time, it doubles down as a modeling posing table. I'm able to accommodate the model's height by just adjusting, you know, the tabletop and a lot of the times, I will cut out a piece of the backdrop that I'm using and I will cover the standing desk with that and that this style, this monochromatic style really has become a huge part of my work in the studio. All the gear mentioned in this video, I'm gonna link down below and I'm not saying that you need to go out and buy everything that I use. I'm just, I just wanted to share what works for me and why and I know that a lot of the stuff mentioned is not cheap but that's just the reality of having a studio, you know, like light stands for example. Either you buy one that's $200 with wheels or you get one, the more budget option, you're still paying almost a hundred dollars for a good light stand. So, yeah, it's just that's, that's the part, you know, the funny part about all this is that I left out a lot of things that I wanted to mention but I left out because it's just not necessity. I left out a lot of things which is probably why I have so much anxiety when I'm there. You know what I'm saying?