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10/06/2005 01:58:18 AM · #1 |
I have a few questions regarding light.
I have a really cruddy home studio set up currently. I have limited room, extremely limited budget and basically, limited everything. I was at the store this evening in the light bulb section thinking I might pick something up but I wasn't sure what would be the most useful to me, so..
What are the best kinds of bulbs for studio/indoor lighting? Halogen? Regular light bulbs? Flood light thingies? Flourescent? Soft whites? Soft pinks?
How can I get pure, clean light? I know that I need to adjust white balance in some instances and other in-camera things, but I want to start with the absolute best, cleanest light in the first place.
How will the above-mentioned light types affect a photograph?
An example of a problem I have is I'll be lighting an item, however even when I have two desk lamps shining on it my camera will say I need to use flash. Or, I will get the slow shutter notification. Why is this?
Often when my camera (please note its a p&s with no manual anything practically) is showing the photo will be taken with a slow shutter, the subject is completely bathed in light, to the point that there are visibly blown out areas where the light is reflecting off of shiny surfaces. I'm not understanding what I'm doing wrong with my light placement (or maybe its the light type) that is causing this.
Any expertise or experiences you can offer that might.. erm.. illuminate (sorry) this issue would be great.
Thanks!
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10/06/2005 02:15:06 AM · #2 |
Well, I'm sure there are plenty of folks A LOT more knowledgable than me that could give you better info, but... 'limited budget' is my middle name! so here are a couple of things I use.
From the lighting section or hardware in like any wal-mart type store, a couple of clamp work shop lights. They are basically just a light bulb socket with a metal reflector dome around it, about the size of a large frisbee. Cost me about $5 each. I put in 'clear view' bulbs. Also I have a stand shop light with 2 halogen lights on it. Adjustable hights, angles and either or both lights and high and low settings, pretty versatile. I think you can find similar things in hardware sections for anywhere of 20-50 dollars. I also have a bunch of white styrofoam boards that I use as 'reflectors', pretty cheap. Some folks use large posterboards, white or even different colors as reflectors.
You can search the web, or the forums here, there are lots of ideas for lighting setups, homemade soft boxes, etc. that can be had with a little bit of work and a fairly inexpensive trip to a hardware dept.
And of course, as you probably already know, a lot of people will say that natural light is the best light. You can utilize good windows and the right times of day and get pretty darn good results :-)
Hope this helps a little, at least til someone that knows what they're talking about answers :-P
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10/06/2005 02:42:07 AM · #3 |
That was helpful to me as well..
Thank you :)
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10/06/2005 02:52:53 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by taterbug:
And of course, as you probably already know, a lot of people will say that natural light is the best light. You can utilize good windows and the right times of day and get pretty darn good results :-) |
i think there was something about the wider spectrum in natural light (sunlight) for colour reflections or something. not sure how much it would make a difference in digital sensors tho. |
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10/06/2005 10:18:26 AM · #5 |
I suggest that you research color temerature and color rendering index (CRI). (Check out //lightingdesignlab.com/articles/cri/cri.htm )
IMO, the important thing is to insure that all your lights have the same CRI and color temperature, and then set the white balance on your camera. Iif all your lights are the same, this is easy. Halogen work lights seem to work ok (just don't plug more than 1500W worth into the same circuit :-)
The camera can compensate for a lot of imperfections in the light, but can't add what's not there. For example, if you use a candle, the light will be very warm and may not have enough blue, so you'll only get reds and greens.
After you get comfortable with using all the same light, you can try using colored light to highlight part of your shot (e.g. put an orange gell over the light that lights your model's face, use a gold reflector, etc). |
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10/06/2005 10:38:50 AM · #6 |
| Your setup and limitations sound familiar. My cheap soft box effect is the result of a piece of paper rolled up as a tube and placed over the bulb. This reduces the hot spots. I use the flourescent curly ones. Good colour and they don't get hot!!!! I also use a tripod and the timer to keep the camera steady. |
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10/06/2005 10:42:33 AM · #7 |
Yeah, hankk has some very valid points.
BUT, in the industry that I represent, and am burnt out with, unless you want perfect studio style lighting make sure to follow what hankk suggests. In the real world however, in the frame that you are envisioning, the setup may not be so perfect as far as light is concerned.
The only time light is perfect is when it leaves the star it came from and is traveling through space.
Once it hits Earth, alot of imperfections happen to that photon, and this is the artistic part of photography that you should think about.
Light takes on some interesting morphs (lack of a better word)5500 kalvin is cooler than 3200 kalvin, shadows, refraction, reflection,bounce, skip, diffusion, color are but a few things to think about with light.
Also, don't worry about buying some expensive, state of the art, high end, technically advance, urban myth, backward engineered alien lighting.
Light is light. Just the manner of how the light is produced, and its color temperature is the differance. Tungsten, floresent, sodium vapor, murcury vapor, HMI all have differant color variences and can be used to your advantage.
You could spend the money to get the latest and greatest, or you could simply just go to your local Home Depot, Lowes, Osh, or hardware store, and purchase some pretty good low end lights and do some of the same stuff I do on a daily basis with the pros here in Hollyweird.
Army Surplus, and art stores, and fabric store are other places to check out for other things to help cut, gobo, bounce, or whatever your imagination will take you to improve your light for pennies instead of dollars.
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10/06/2005 02:38:37 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by swinging_johnson_v1:
Yeah, hankk has some very valid points.
BUT, in the industry that I represent, and am burnt out with, unless you want perfect studio style lighting make sure to follow what hankk suggests. In the real world however, in the frame that you are envisioning, the setup may not be so perfect as far as light is concerned.
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Sorry, I have to learn to write more clearly. IMO, most kinds of lights, especially cheap halogen worklights and incandescent bulbs, work fine unless you have a huge budget and demanding client (or a client with deep pockets...)
To be pendantic, the points I was trying to make were:
1. You can accomodate the different lights by setting the WB on the camera manually (AWB sometimes doesn't get it right). You can also do this in PS, especially if you shoot RAW.
2. Keep all the lights the same type--In general, the cheapest lights will work ok, but don't mix two different technologies like fluorescent and incandescent. If you want to be really accurate, use the same brand/type of bulb in each light (i.e. don't mix warm and cool fluoresent lights).
3. There are some exceptions, //www.sizes.com/units/CRI.htm claims sodium and mercury lighting has a very low CRI
I'll differ on the statement "light is light". Each source of light has a different charecteristic spectrogram. In this case, a few pictures are worth more than any explanation I can give, so please see //www.topbulb.com/find/cri.asp for details. Note that this page claims "all incandescent and halogen light bulbs, by definition, have a CRI close to 100" even though the color temperature is off.
Again, your camera WB (or Photoshop) can compensate for a lot of different light types, but its sometimes tough to compensate for two vastly different light types.
P.S. This site may be of interest: //www.dansdata.com/phototute2.htm
Message edited by author 2005-10-06 14:47:23. |
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10/06/2005 02:52:05 PM · #9 |
Just to give a reference place to start, here is a link from GE on lightbulbs:
different light
If you use the interactive light booth, it will show you what different bulbs produce compared to each other. They don't show them here, but I use their daylight bulbs which are much closer to daylight in terms of temperature.
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10/06/2005 02:56:27 PM · #10 |
Keep in mind that some lights can give shadows as the glass is not perfectly smooth. To help with this you can get some velum paper at any hobby shop and cover the lights with it. Just don't let the paper touch the glass of the bulb, it will burn.
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10/06/2005 03:39:36 PM · #11 |
Sometimes you have to be creative and work with what you have.
This was taken with halogen shop lights and white paper background.
this was taken with a small desk lamp reflected off of a piece of mat board above the camera.
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10/06/2005 07:45:53 PM · #12 |
This has been very helpful, I had no clue about CRI and color temperature so I'll be looking into that.
Going along with my question about needing a slower shutter speed even though everything *looks* bright to me - would this be an indication that I need something to reflect the light back towards the camera?
I checked out that GE site too and decided to get some of the GE Reveal ones, the light in the images looked like what I was wanting - we'll see if it manifests itself the same here at home.
swinging_johnson, you said "Army Surplus, and art stores, and fabric store are other places to check out for other things to help cut, gobo, bounce, or whatever your imagination will take you to improve your light for pennies instead of dollars."
What is "gobo"? I don't understand that reference so it caught my eye.
taterbug, you mentioned "Also I have a stand shop light with 2 halogen lights on it. Adjustable hights, angles and either or both lights and high and low settings, pretty versatile." in your post..
How tall is this initially? Its built to stand on the ground, yes?
One of the problems I have with my pseudo-studio (heh, fun to say) is that I don't have any edges to clamp stuff to. I'm using a mini-fridge as my base.. that's how sad it is. I do have a chair that I've used the back to clamp my two office lights (those small ones) to but that's not very versatile. So something that stands up and can lean/twist yet is sturdy and durable would be great.
We've been doing oodles of remodelling this past summer so I practically live at Home Depot. I can probably find something there - hopefully at a decent price.
Again, thank you all for your insights, they've given me new things to explore and some hope that I can at least get my environment to a decent standard.
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10/06/2005 07:50:10 PM · #13 |
Ya know, you can get all technical and be a lighting scientist. Have all the graphs you want, all the chip charts, and grey scale charts you want.
OR
You could just know the basics, which are warm light is tungsten @ 3200 K, and blue light is cool @ 5600 K. You can put jell on all light, and make tungsten cool, and blue light warm.
Diffusion, bounce, and skip are basic ways to soften.
Gobo (go between) adds character, and interesting stylized shadows.
Cutting light is done with just about anything, especially black douvatein flags, or something with a straight edge.
Negative fill is the opposite of a bounce, creating more dark than light.
Trust your eye, know the basics, experiment, learn, go forward, do it again, and again, until you find your own lighting taste. There is no right way to light, but there are definetly wrong ways.
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