The kit includes a photographic background and essential studio accessories, allowing for its installation in home, office, school or studio environments. The simple configuration will work well for beginner photographers.

The Academy™ kit has been prepared for users based on the requirements set out for a home photo studio. It contains the most important elements that allow you to build a photographic studio in domestic conditions - a background hanging kit, basic background and lighting. The green color of the background enables photography and filming using the GreenScreen (color keying) technique, providing excellent conditions for effect, portrait, product or simple "virtual TV studio" photography. The continuous lighting included allows constant preview of results on camera (phone) before shutter release. In the case of inanimate nature, the frame is limited only by the width of the background. The kit can also be used for filming (live, stream, remote learning). Higher sensitivities are then required.

The Academy™ photographic studio kit allows you to take photos:

• portrait photos (makeup, artistic portrait, effect photos, photomanipulation)
• product photos (catalogs websites, online stores, sales platforms)
• film shots in a "virtual studio"
• special effects (FX)
• photos for documents (IDs, passports, student IDs, biometric photos - after exchanging the background to white. White background is not included in this kit)

Blue box (also known as bluescreen, GreenScreen, chroma key) is an image processing technique that involves replacing the background of a relatively uniform color (originally blue, hence the name) with any other image. It is widely used in television (most often during weather forecasts and news programs) and film (to place actors in computer-generated environments). The background color is usually blue or green because these colors are considered least similar to skin tone and appear rarely in costumes and props.

In digital video recording, color is represented by three numbers indicating the brightness of the color components (RGB). The blue box effect is achieved through a simple comparison of the values of these numbers at individual points in the recording with the background color. If the colors match (exactly or within a certain range), the recording at that point is replaced by an alternative background.

A person participating in a blue box recording should not wear clothes in a similar color to the background, as they will be replaced by the alternative image. They also cannot hold objects of this color. This can be used to create an effect of an invisible character wearing an invisibility hat, for example.

In some Polish television channels (e.g., TVP, TVN Meteo Active), blue box is used to present weather forecasts. Public television in the years 1990-1992 used blue box in the News program to generate a uniform blue background and display animations next to the presenter. In the years 1997-2002, it was used in the same program to generate a newsroom image behind the presenter's back. Source: Wikipedia.

The lighting used in the kit is innovative, continuous studio lighting - single-bulb LED lamps on lighting stands with photographic umbrellas serving as light modifiers. The lamps are equipped with DaVinci^™ photographic bulbs with standardized parameters (color temperature 3600-6200K and color rendering index CRI >90). Using continuous light in a home studio provides an excellent real-time view of the results, allows work using smartphones, and importantly - enables filming. The use of umbrellas softens the tonal transition between light and shadow.

In Academy™ kits, at least 2 lamps are used due to mutual compensation of shadows - one lamp serves as the main light source, while the other acts as a fill light. The power of the bulbs used is given in the technical specification (below).

The strong point of the kit is lighting with remote brightness and color temperature control. Here, innovative LED Bi-Color bulbs from the DaVinci™ series are used, remotely controlled via included remotes.

Variable color temperature in the bulb is achieved in a classic way known from on-camera lamps - by mounting a chessboard of luminescent diodes with two different color temperatures. This solution has an additional advantage that shifts in the spectrum of individual diodes increase effective color rendering for the entire bulb. The range of color temperatures is 3600K to 6200K. High luminous efficiency of the bulb means we achieve very high luminance, equivalent to 170-watt bulbs, with low active power consumption.

The LED matrices are covered by a protective light-diffusing dome (diffuser) with an area of 112cm², ensuring that the emitted light has a pleasant, soft distribution regardless of intensity. At short distances, the softening of light can correspond to a softbox or beauty-dish lamp. The bulb produces very nice, relatively large reflections.

The generated light is continuous without flickering, enabling filming with higher frame rates. The bulb is designed for indoor use, protection class IP20. It is intended for professional applications in photographic studio conditions. The bulb is not suitable for home use. The bulb housing is not hermetically sealed.

A lightweight, single-layer umbrella with a diameter of 84 cm and a silver reflector. The silver reflective layer does not change the color temperature of the reflected light. The outer layer does not reflect light.
Umbrellas are used by professionals and amateurs alike. The function of an umbrella is to change the direction of incident light rays. The spherical shape of the reflector acts like a lens, changing the omnidirectional nature of the light into more parallel beams. This also increases the overall amount of light falling on the photographed object. In practice, this means that sharp shadows become softer, shapes are more plastic and "three-dimensional", textures are emphasized but not harsh. They allow us to eliminate unwanted shadows, making tonal transitions much gentler. In portrait photography, skin looks better, wrinkles are reduced, and the iris is large and bright. In product photography, details in shadows are enhanced while reducing overexposure (glare) on shiny surfaces. This is also an ideal solution for people creating videos for their online channels.

A lightweight and stable stand designed for use with small and medium lamps as well as lighting kits in studio and outdoor environments. It works perfectly in a configuration with flash lights and continuous light, softboxes, RedHead halogen lamps whose easy assembly is enabled by the 16mm studio head with universal 1/4" thread. When folded, the stand takes up little space, and its assembly is extremely simple - it has convenient, profiled section clamps. The maximum height of the stand after unfolding is 200cm, while the working height is 205 cm.
The beam was attached to the stands using butterfly nuts, which prevents it from being lifted when raising the background upwards. Unrolling the background from the roll is blocked by plugging in two grips (frogs) included with the kit.

The width and length of the fabric on the roll is sufficient to create a continuous background without folds (cyclorama) for photographing a silhouette. The cardboard roll protects against creases during transport or storage. Potential creases can be easily removed by steaming or wetting the background. The perforated texture of the background minimizes reflections from strong light sources. The cardboard roll, on which the background is wound, serves as a base for easy storage and transportation of the background, also allowing it to be hung on a studio beam.

Creative use of the background requires the photographer or camera operator to plan the frame and the desired final effect after keying. Of course, a computer with appropriate software will be necessary. The good news is that there are free versions of software available that allow image keying in both photography and film. For those starting work with green backgrounds as greenscreens, we highly recommend materials published on YouTube.

A note about the texture of the material - people who encounter photographic polypropylene background for the first time fear that its texture will be visible in photos. In real conditions, the object remains at a distance of approximately 50 cm from the background, which together with shallow depth of field causes the background texture to become blurred.

Choosing lighting power

When selecting lighting for a photographic studio, it is important to ensure the right amount of light needed to achieve your goal. The Home Photographic Studio kits may contain (depending on the version) from 2 to 16 bulbs.

• Inanimate nature does not require strong light.
  If you are photographing an object that is not a living being, you can freely use single-bulb lamps. In product photography, exposure time is arbitrary and can always be adjusted to ensure proper exposure. A tripod will come in handy.
• Beware of people (and animals).
  During the photography of people and animals, exposure time is limited. Especially when photographing children or active animals, a significantly larger amount of light is required. Single-bulb lamps will pass the test at short distances (approx. 0.5 m).
• The wider the frame - the more bulbs.
  It can be assumed that for a portrait you can use two single-bulb lamps. When photographing with a large close-up, the distance of the softbox from the face is small and provides proper exposure. Increasing the frame very quickly forces an increase in light quantity.
• Fashion trend on live models.
  If you plan to photograph fashion with a model (male or female), choose kits with two or more four-bulb softboxes.