Holiday events have a way of filling a room. Being tasked with running a party photo booth for friends and family can be daunting, especially if your budget isn’t big and your space isn’t, either.

We put together a simple, fun photo booth using portable items that you can rent from BorrowLenses.com. There are various ways to make a booth–some even more simple than this, many more complex. This is just how we did it and you can improve/build upon it. If you do create a booth, feel free to share links to your fun party pictures in the comments below and tell us how you made it!

Our Backdrop:

We purchased a lightweight wood dowel and stapled garland to it. It is light enough to still be able to hang with gaffer’s tape and not ruin your hosts’ walls. Of course, we have backdrops and backdrop stands for rent. But they take up quite a bit of space.

Equipment Used:

• 3 Nikon SB-910s: 1 main, 1 fill, 1 back light.
• 3 SD-9 Compact Battery Packs for Nikon: extra battery power for the flashes.
• D800, using the popup flash as a commander (info box below for other flash-triggering options)
• Photoflex OctoDome Extra Small Kit: comes with a speedring, flash mount, and multiclamp.
• Manfrotto lightstand for the Photoflex OctoDome.
• AlienBees LS1100 backlight stand and multiclamp for the back light.
• Justin Clamp for the fill light (bouncing off a reflector).
• Pocket Wizard Plus II and TT5 (info box below for other shutter-triggering options).
• Pocket Wizard motor cord for Nikon.
• Tripod and ballhead for camera.
• 35mm lens or something with a range like 24-120mm, allowing for close-quarter shooting.

[learn_more caption="Additional Resources"]

• Using Nikon’s Creative Lighting System with the onboard flash.
• Another Creative Lighting System quick how-to.
• Canon wireless flash firing quick how-to.
• Pocket Wizard tips and tricks. [/learn_more]

Set Up: The Lights

[learn_more caption="Wirelessly Firing Flashes with your Camera"] The following Nikon cameras can fire the following Nikon flashes via the pop-up flash on the camera:

D800 & D800E, D700, D600, D300, D200, D90, D80, D70, D7000 with SB-910, SB-900, SB-800, SB-700, SB-600.

All other cameras must use an SU-Commander (or another flash set as a master) that connects to the hotshoe to fire the flashes.

The following Canon cameras can fire the following Canon flashes via the pop-up flash on the camera: Canon 7D, Canon 60D, Canon Rebel T4i, Canon Rebel T3i with 430 EX II, 580 EX II, 600 EX-RT.

All other cameras must use an ST-E2 or ST-E3-RT (or another flash set as a master) that connects to the hotshoe to fire the flashes.

The Pentax K-5 and K-7 will also fire the Pentax AF-540 flash via their onboard popup flashes. The Sony A77, A35, and A55 will fire Sony flashes using their popup as well.

For other models/brands, you will need to use a set of triggers, such as our Pocket Wizard Plus IIs. [/learn_more]

• 1 flash in the OctoDome on a lightstand, behind the camera and pointing down onto the subject. This will produce “butterfly lighting” on the subject’s face (a little shadow under the nose and chin). The more intense the downward angle, the longer these shadows get.

• 1 flash on a Justin Clamp attached to the same lightstand the OctoDome is on. Flash is pointed down onto a white reflector that is merely leaning against our stand on the ground at a angle so that this light bounces up into the underside of our subject’s face and softens those butterfly shadows a bit.

• 1 flash pointed on the AlienBees stand pointed straight up into the garland behind where the subjects will be standing. This is to give the backdrop a little bit of glow and to prevent the entire scene from looking too flat.

• 3 SD-9 Compact Battery Packs for Nikon. These attach directly to the SB-910s.

[learn_more caption="Other Flash-Powering Options"] Unlike traditional strobes, flashes eat up batteries. You can rent a battery pack for each flash, such as the Quantum Turbo. These do add weight to your setup but they also nicely double as sandbags for your stands. Another option is a to use a compact battery pack that can be filled with AAs to keep your flashes going longer, like the Nikon SD-9 or the Canon CP-E4. [/learn_more]

Set Up: The Camera

• D800 on Induro with a medium-wide lens.
• Pocket Wizard motor cord for Nikon. 1 end connected to the camera, the other connected to a Pocket Wizard TT5.
• Pocket Wizard Plus II in the hands of the model for easy firing of the camera (and so that you don’t have to man the photobooth all night).

[learn_more caption="Other Shutter-Triggering Options"] There are several ways you can trigger your camera’s shutter for a photobooth. One option would be to get a remote (like this one from Canon). Another option is to rent a couple of Pocket Wizards and a remote camera cable. Connect the remote camera cable between your camera and 1 Pocket Wizard. The other Pocket Wizard can be set to “remote” and be held by your guests to fire the camera whenever they are ready! You can do this with a Pocket Wizard TT5 on the camera and a Plus II as the remote or just two Plus II’s. [/learn_more]

Set Up: Firing the Flashes Wirelessly

• Pop your camera’s onboard flash.
• Set your camera’s menu settings for flash to “commander” mode (details HERE).
• Set your flash dial to “Remote”.

Every time the camera fires via either remote, timer, or the Pocket Wizard, the popup flash will send a split-second signal to the other flashes to fire. Easy strobe-like lighting for a small space! Here is another view of this setup:

This sounds like a lot of items but they are all actually quite compact and light. And, of course, there are a million ways to vary this setup to your personal tastes and needs. This is just what we did and we hope it gave you a few ideas for creating your own photo booth this holiday season. If you do create a booth, feel free to share links to your fun party pictures in the comments below and tell us how you made it!