I'm really interested in setting up a small home studio in my spare room. What would be the minimum lighting set up you guys would advise and back drops? I'm brand new to portraits but I need something interesting to shoot when my agoraphobia stops play for the day...week...month.
I've seen the £70 home studio set ups on amazon which are about my budget but I wondered if anyone had any experiences of these?
Continuous lighting is relatively inexpensive, but limits you. Although it's easy to see what you're going to get. For your budget, I would get an inexpensive manual speedlight, wireless trigger, and a large shoot-through umbrella. I think there is an article or two on The Strobist about shooting with umbrellas. Limited gear will force you to get creative.
Cheers mate, that's great advice. And I definitely agree about the limited equipment philosophy, for the past year my only lens was the 18-55 kit lens and this really made me think more about what I was shooting.
I have a ridiculous amount of gear, but almost all my product photography is shot with either one continuous light with foam core reflectors, or one flash with reflectors, and an old Canon 5D with 50mm macro lens. Put a standard 50mm 1.8 on a crop body, and you have an effective 80mm lens, which is both great for portraits, and fast enough for low output lights.
In the UK, it seems that the Interfit lighting kits are highly regarded by beginners. I would look for one used. Those heads are not fancy, but they are tough, and they last. With a modern digital camera, even the 150ws head will be enough for single portraits.