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Home studio Shadowless lighting on a budget - help
I know absolutely nothing about photography, so please have
patience...all I've done so far is to read a few articles on the internet, and in this NG. I've been using my digital camera (Sony DSC-70) for a couple of years now, to take photographs of items I sell. I've had pretty good results, simply using floor lamps in my living room and turning off the flash on the camera. Most of the items I sell are small to medium sized pieces of furniture, and other (small) antiques. Now, I want to move to the next level in quality and composition of my photographs. What I would like to do is improve my lighting. I plan on buying a muslin backdrop and creating a tiny 'home studio' area. My goal is to properly light the subject for accurate color representation, and zero shadows. Here is what I was thinking (I'm on a very tight budget :-) 1. A pair of 500W halogen work lights, aimed into black-backed white umbrellas. 2. A 2nd pair of 500w halogen work lights, with home-made soft boxes. I'll play around with arranging the lighting, but was thinking that the umbrellas should be behind the camera, one to the left and another to the right -- and the soft boxes should be on either side of the subject being photographed (?) Without going to the expense of using flash units...here are my questions: What else should I do to try to completely eliminate shadows? Should I put a 5th light directly above the camera, on the same axis as the imaginary line from the lens to the subject? If so, what kind of light should that be? Really bright and direct, or diffused? Should there be direct overhead lighting, above the subject? Should there be lighting behind the subject? Thanks in advance for any suggestions or ideas you can give me to try. -Randy |
#2
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Home studio Shadowless lighting on a budget - help
Randy MacKenna wrote:
What else should I do to try to completely eliminate shadows? Two lights - and 150W tungstens in inexpensive flood holders are probably plenty, you don't need 500W work lights - arranged one to each side and using simple diffusers of some sort - such as fluorescent light plastic or muslin over a simple square frame - should provide good lighting with minimal shadows. Use a tripod and experiment with some fill flash from the camera, as well as the positioning of the lights. The usual flaw is to use lights that are too small (in size, not wattage) and too far from the subject. Use a big diffuser (3x3 feet or more) and put the lights as close in as possible. For tabletop objects, you will probably have a light almost touching each of your shoulders. -- | James Gifford * FIX SPAMTRAP TO REPLY | | So... your philosophy fits in a sig, does it? | | Heinlein stuff at: www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah | |
#3
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Home studio Shadowless lighting on a budget - help
you are talking about equipment without understanding what and how it does, and why they did it that way. forget it, on ebay there are lots of those whte cube tents, buy one, problem solved. you need to shoot bigger stuff, first think about how surrounding a shiny object with white takes care of the problem, do something similar only bigger. do you have a white room? bounce some lights on to one side wall and behind you and make the whole room a box.. LIghing isn't about umbrellas and boxes, its about arc of the horizon, the wider the softer, umbrellas are only OK if you can get them so close the shaft is in the picture, thats why they invented softboxes, you could get them closer. for most things you need an arc of 90' for smooth polished things you need almost 180 when they invented lights they didn't have fire proof fabrics, they had very very slow film and slow lenses, so they need to concentrate every bit of light into the smallest space, the spot light was born. later they got faster films, so they could use bright bulbs in metal reflectors, to do head shots nice. in the 60s they invented umbrellas, who job was to focus the light towards an area about twice its size, but really its as specular as that metal scoop used at their designed distances. if you go out and see what light makes things look the best, its twilight, what is it, a big big arc of the sky, no specular sunlight. set up a light to bounce off a side wall, base your exposure on it, now you can add some lights to emphasis things, skim a light from the opposite side to raise detail of texture and shape. I know absolutely nothing about photography, so please have patience...all I've done so far is to read a few articles on the internet, and in this NG. I've been using my digital camera (Sony DSC-70) for a couple of years now, to take photographs of items I sell. I've had pretty good results, simply using floor lamps in my living room and turning off the flash on the camera. Most of the items I sell are small to medium sized pieces of furniture, and other (small) antiques. Now, I want to move to the next level in quality and composition of my photographs. What I would like to do is improve my lighting. I plan on buying a muslin backdrop and creating a tiny 'home studio' area. My goal is to properly light the subject for accurate color representation, and zero shadows. Here is what I was thinking (I'm on a very tight budget :-) 1. A pair of 500W halogen work lights, aimed into black-backed white umbrellas. 2. A 2nd pair of 500w halogen work lights, with home-made soft boxes. I'll play around with arranging the lighting, but was thinking that the umbrellas should be behind the camera, one to the left and another to the right -- and the soft boxes should be on either side of the subject being photographed (?) Without going to the expense of using flash units...here are my questions: What else should I do to try to completely eliminate shadows? Should I put a 5th light directly above the camera, on the same axis as the imaginary line from the lens to the subject? If so, what kind of light should that be? Really bright and direct, or diffused? Should there be direct overhead lighting, above the subject? Should there be lighting behind the subject? Thanks in advance for any suggestions or ideas you can give me to try. -Randy |
#4
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Home studio Shadowless lighting on a budget - help
On Thursday 04 December 2003 07:24, Randy MacKenna wrote:
I know absolutely nothing about photography, so please have patience...all I've done so far is to read a few articles on the internet, and in this NG. I've been using my digital camera (Sony DSC-70) for a couple of years now, to take photographs of items I sell. I've had pretty good results, simply using floor lamps in my living room and turning off the flash on the camera. Most of the items I sell are small to medium sized pieces of furniture, and other (small) antiques. Now, I want to move to the next level in quality and composition of my photographs. What I would like to do is improve my lighting. I plan on buying a muslin backdrop and creating a tiny 'home studio' area. My goal is to properly light the subject for accurate color representation, and zero shadows. Here is what I was thinking (I'm on a very tight budget :-) 1. A pair of 500W halogen work lights, aimed into black-backed white umbrellas. 2. A 2nd pair of 500w halogen work lights, with home-made soft boxes. I'll play around with arranging the lighting, but was thinking that the umbrellas should be behind the camera, one to the left and another to the right -- and the soft boxes should be on either side of the subject being photographed (?) Without going to the expense of using flash units...here are my questions: What else should I do to try to completely eliminate shadows? Should I put a 5th light directly above the camera, on the same axis as the imaginary line from the lens to the subject? If so, what kind of light should that be? Really bright and direct, or diffused? Should there be direct overhead lighting, above the subject? Should there be lighting behind the subject? Thanks in advance for any suggestions or ideas you can give me to try. First, you should read a few books on product lighting techniques, just to get an idea of what's involved. In the meantime, if you want shadowless lighting, the easiest way is to use a small room to make a "lighting tent." It only needs white walls and ceiling. The floor should be white, too, but, if it's not a "bright" color that will cause a colorcast, it should be okay. (You could always cover the exposed floor covering with something white or neutral grey. Anyway, just position 4 lights -- one at each of the room's corners -- pointing at where the walls and ceiling meet. Be sure to have the lights far enough away, so that most of the walls and ceiling are illuminated. Position the object to be photographed about a 1/3 the long dimension of the room from back wall. You'll get very even, "wrap-around" light with this technique. You can also use a 3 light setup: 2 lights aimed at the room's corners in front of the subject (behind the camera position) and a 3rd behind your background muslin to hide it from the camera, pointed at the ceiling, aimed a little behind directly above the subject. Alternatively, this 3rd light could be aimed directly at the subject to "rim light" it to separate the subject from the background, but you'll have to use a much lower wattage bulb to prevent burnout of the highlights. If needed, to add "accents" to the subject use various sized silver reflector cards (regular silver artboard from an art supply store will do) to reflect more light to certain areas of the subject. Those "work lights" should be just fine. Although with 4 - 500 watt lights going, it's going to get hot quickly in your "studio." Depending on circumstances, 250 - 300 watt units might work just as well. Also, remember to do a manual "white balance" to read (and lock) the proper color balance for the lights' color temperature. Good luck... -- Stefan Patric NoLife Polymath Group |
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