Cheap studio lighting for clothing pictures with rebel?

[dumadiscount]

I am a beginner photographer and need to take studio type pictures of garments for web use ie tops / bottoms / full length of clothes on a model (face wont be in the picture).

What I have to work with:

- rebel xti

- 50/1.8 mk II

- decent lounge room that allows moderate amount of ambient daylight in. white walls

- standard studio drop sheet setup borrowed

My budget is slim, in the $300 area.

I'm intending to shoot in the middle of the day to get as much ambient light as possible.

Tricky part is what simple flash setup can I go for to get a nice studio type shot? I only came up with 2 options:

1 Buy a 430EX and bounce if off one of the side walls.

2 Go for a "strobist" setup. 1 x Nikon SB24 (my mate will sell me one for good price), shooting into umbrella, stand, ebay wireless triggers.

Any other sub $300 options?

Note: I have tried worklights but they didn’t seem powerful enough.

I'd ask this on a photog forum but most discussions ive read are about portraits rather than clothes, and perhaps someone else on sf has done similar work?

Any help from resident superfuturian photogs would be appreciated!!

Flames also welcome

[swooc]

Goto the overclockers AU forum. Theres a photography section and do a search there. I remember their were a few threads on ghetto setups and the results were really good.

[smurf]

Google "make softbox"

http://www.fredmiranda.com/A18/

http://www.instructables.com/id/EX8FILZ16MEQHO9PFQ/

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1306/is_n6_v58/ai_12377687

[ayn]

home depot hotlights setup with white seamless paper will probably be your best bet... you can probably find some info on building a home depot budget setup at Fred Miranda somewhere, the search function at that site REALLY sucks though...

[aaronS]

home depot hotlights setup with white seamless paper will probably be your best bet... you can probably find some info on building a home depot budget setup at Fred Miranda somewhere, the search function at that site REALLY sucks though...

This is a really good setup for barely any money. put that at the angle you want the most shadow and shoot with the on camera flash and they should turn out nice.

[ayn]

well, you won't need the builtin flash, if you use it you will get light with different temp so it will be messy to get the colors right...

[michaeljkrell]

The pics on my website are anything, but extraordinary, but they look ok. They were done with a cheap two light setup that a friend gave to me....

But I would check out the lightsphere II. It is really, really nice. I bought one to take pictures for a friend's wedding, and this thing rocks. It is the best diffuser on the market... I also use it to take all my pictures now. I would get a generic flash, i have the sunpak 383, for $100, and then get the clear and cloud lightsphere for $50 each.

http://store.garyfonginc.com/lightsphere.html