Hackjob Lighting

My workbench, all lit up…
(Click for more.)

Well, one of the other things I did today was get my hacked together lighting rig (photo gallery retired) put together and give it a try. Well, it seems to work. (The photo in my last post was taken using it.)

In the end, I have a setup which I metered (using the Photoshop Camera Raw plugin and a grey card) at 4900K, which is just great for my purposes.

The setup was made using four Sunwave 30W compact fluorescent bulbs which I’d ordered ordered from Cindy at Cloud Dome for a pretty reasonable price. The bulbs are fairly large and well made, and fit fairly nicely into the clip-on flood lights I purchased from Home Depot.

To diffuse the light, I took four sheets of Roscolux 116 ‘Tough White Diffusion’ gel, cut them down to 12″ x 12″ squares, and clip them in front of the lamps by the corners, forming a puffed out box. I found that if make marks 2″ in from the corners and clip along the line formed between these points, things work out rather well.

In the end I’ve got four rather workable lamps which seem to provide some pretty even lighting. I may want another four down the line, but at a total of about $100 for all the parts needed to make this (the lamps themselves are by far the most expensive and inaccessible parts) I’ll have to hold off on this for a bit.

The only other change I may make is in the size of the gels used. I think that I may be losing some light to the sides and rear of the fixture with the gels billowing out slightly as they do. I imagine if I used 10″ squares instead, I may get more light on the work surface… Oh, and then I’d also get all four pieces needed for a project like this out of one 20″ x 24″ sheet of gel.