Photo Lighting
Here is the first test image from my hackjob photo lighting rig. It has been white balanced, the saturation turned up to +2, and cropped somewhat. Best I can tell, (thanks to Photoshop’s Camera Raw plugin and clicking on a grey card) the lights are putting out ~2850 light, which I’m able to compensate for, even though it’s really, really low. Also, I can’t help but think I’m blowing out the side of the bottle with the way the lights are setup right now. I think they need to be moved or I need to get a soft box or something.
Anyway, if you are curious, this is how I have it set up for now, although I have tried moving the lamps around to the sides of the bench, and changing the angle at which the backdrop hangs. Most importantly, I think I first need to get decent temperature bulbs, then some sort of soft box, either for the lamps or to put the object being photographed in. We’ll see…
Just go to CameraMart and get some diffusion filters – they come in sheets and you can clip them over the hotlights – they come in different diffusion densities and are flame retardant – occasionally you might scorch them if yo are working with super high temp lamps but they’ll never ctach. I’ve lost all mine and need to get more, this should solve your hot-spot problem.
Good idea… That would be a lot easier. That, plus appropriate temperature bulbs and I’d imagine it will all be better.
Yep, agreed, I forgot you were just shooting stuff so small – I need the overkill because I’m shooting people and have 14′ ceilings, a lot of light gets lost in the big space.
Hehe, yeah… This whole idea came out of wanting to get a nice photo of a small circuit board with even lighting between the components. Thus the idea for the soft box around everything…
I’ll likely also use it for food, beer, and other things like that.
I actually need to set up something similar, for more producty shots, setting up and tearing down everything to shoot a damn tie (badly) is getting super old.
The clip-on spotlights from Home Depot are $5.95/each and seem to work pretty good. If you can get standard base bulbs and those diffusion filters, I’d imagine it’ll work out pretty well. Do it all a few inches above the floor and it’ll be really easy to shoot from a tripod, or you can hang the tie.
As dethany suggests, you’ll have much better results if you get some diffusion to put in front of the lamps. They’ll help quite a bit with the sourcing problem.
In the film I just finished shooting, we often used clip lights like this with 90W Par 38 lamps, frosted with Rosco 116. We of course white balanced for incandescent lighting.
On the other hand, when you shoot shiny objects, some method of indirect lighting (even half assed, like bouncing off a piece of white foam core) might be necessary to totally eliminate unwanted reflections.
Nice, thanks for the info about the filter type… I’ll see if I can find some smallish pieces of tomorrow, along with some lights which are a bit closer to sunlight. 2850 is just TOO low.
Would you mind reminding me of the Detroit area lighting supply place you use? I think you told me about it before, but I can’t remember…
Thanks again. :)
In the Detroit area, I’ve previously purchased from Pegasus Theatrical. They seem to generally have pretty much the entire Rosco range of gels in stock. Sheets are 20×24 in., and cost about $6.50. There are other theatrical supply places around that may be geographically more convenient … I can’t remember them off hand, but you can find them via google local. The gel prices at the other area suppliers are a bit more, but it only made a big difference for me because of the quantity I was buying.
Just FYI, I can’t seem to find any place closer than Pegasus Theatrical who carries gels.
I think this place does (I know I called a place in Clinton Twp, on Groesbeck):
North Coast Studios Inc
(586) 792-1380
36415 Groesbeck Hwy
Clinton Twp, MI 48035
But if I’m remembering right, their prices were stupid.
Oh, thanks. I just gave them a call and they wanted $10/ea for 24″ x 24″, and they don’t carry any of the Roscolux diffusion ones at all. I guess I’ll be going to Pegasus. At least it’s not too far from work…
not too shabby
tips in shooting glass:
glass looks best when the light is sent through the bottle, illuminating the liquid…or at least bounced off a card first and then onto the object…the most natural way. Its softer that way and will kill those hot spots. Also…when shooting clear glass…placing a piece of black foamcore on either side will produce the nice shadows on the side of the bottle …using white foam next to dark glass does the same. Allows the object to retain its true shape.
The easiest way to get great lighting with that…a little trick from the pros….
buy a small white trash can like you’d put in the bathroom….place the object inside of it and light the outside of the can. The light will go through if it’s strong enough and produce a great overall soft light…without having to buy or make reflectors, bounce cards and soft boxes. It works really well with small objects even metallic objects like watches and such.