Wanna see Studio FD ?

A lot of people ask us if we want to show how our studio looks.
Well to be honest that’s difficult because it changes a lot, but we decided to make a small impression from how it looks now and give you some measurements and gear guide information.

What you see on the video is the main working space and the second floor.
On the main working space we changed a lot over the years, the total space is app 8×16 meters and app 6.5 meters in height.
At first the “stage” was half the size it is now because there were two smaller rooms in the back were we used to have a relax area and the makeup room. However because I love to shoot with longer lenses this was not an option for long so we broke down those two areas and changed everything to one big space. The makeup area is now located at the side which can be expanded very quickly and easily to accommodate more MUAs but it’s not taking up any valuable floor space when not needed, like it did when we had it in a separate room.

The cockpit
The workstation you see is where we check the images coming in and were I do my work for retouching. When you go to the gear guide on this blog you can see the hardware I’m using and the software (if you want to order please support the blog and use the links in that guide). I’m using a 3 monitor setup as you can see. The main monitor is the Lacie 324i on which I do all the retouching and critical work, during shoots that’s also the monitor where capture one shows all the images. Next to it on the left is an older 4:3 sized Iiyama, the only reason it’s there is to check focus on 100% full screen. On Capture One you can dedicate one monitor for a 100% view and with this monitor it gives me a quick and adequate overview of my focus. On top is a Samsung LCD 40″ monitor. In fact this is just a normal LCD tv, so anything will work, make sure however you have a HDMI connector and it supports 1920×1080 and doesn’t have an option like local dimming, or in plain english get the cheaper versions but make sure you get a wide viewing angle. This monitors sole purpose is to show the images coming in during the shoot to the students, models and team (and me). All monitors are calibrated of course but only the main monitor is very accurate, the others are within their limitations but as mentioned before they all have a different purpose. I calibrated the Samsung to the ISF norm so it can als function as a big preview monitor when I’m doing video editing which helps a lot, because a normal monitor will always show video slightly different than a normal TV set does.

The walls
When you look closely you will see that our studio has many different walls, all containing different structures, different wallpaper etc. This is done to give me during the shoots a lot of options. There also big moveable walls placed at the sides of the studio, which has different types of wallpaper on both sides and can be used to complement other walls (thus creating a small corner) or by itself of course. The average size of a “scene” is 2.5 meters in width which gives me enough room to shoot full body shots close to the wall. The moveable walls are slightly wider.

Second floor
On the second floor you will find the coffee machine (which makes a killer cappuccino I’m told), an area to relax and a wonderful overview of the working space from above. We have also placed the printers on the second floor. The main printer is an Epson Gemini4 which is a standalone printer that is working from it’s own server and is rented out to studios to save them a lot of money. You can rent the printer/server and only pay per print, inkt and paper is free. Especially when you print a lot on different types of paper this will save loads of money because you pay per print and not for the inkt. Because I’m part of the Epson Mentor program we demonstrate this printer to our students when they are in the market for this project.

Next to it you will find the Epson 3800 which I use for all other prints that I want to have on borderless paper, at the moment our version of the Gemini doesn’t do borderless printing, the new versions do by the way because they are based on the 3800, for me that would mean loosing the option to print on roll paper so I’m using both printers next to each other.

Your own studio
Building your own studio is one of the most exciting things I’ve done, I keep changing everything around and keep finding new options and possibilities to use the walls and custom paints. If you have any questions about building your own studio please post them here….. but also please share images of your studio and tell us something about it.