Useing light to take pictures.

[johnwalkeasy]

Would like to take some better photos of my work. Useing the flash is makeing the pictures come out not so good. Don,t want to have to take work into the sun if I can avoid it. Would like to use some kind of lights. Not sure of what kind to shop for. Or really how to use them in the right way. I,ll find all that out. But have posted this to see what advice I could get before I start buying lights and making stands and all that kind of stuff.

[pehiatt]

I used florescent shop lights for a while but I now get much better results using very inexpensive strobe flash units with diffusion um
ellas. I got the lights as a 2 strobe kit from amazon.com ($100). These lights (45ws) may not be good for a professional portrait studio but they do fine for copying paintings. You might also need a safe hot shoe for the PC connection.

Set the lights out about 4 to 6 feet and at 30 to 40 degrees from perpendicular. Wa la! no reflection and enough light to keep a good depth of field fpr sharp focus. Color temperature is much better with the strobes. If your camera has a custom white balance adjustment use it. If not take a white shot and make the adjustment in your photo software. What use to take hours now is almost instantaneous. Most of all its repeatable.

[demac]

I use normal bulbs called Daylight (bayonet cap) at 60watt, they are a blue coloured bulb you can stick in any lamp with a bayonet cap and simulates daylight. Took photos with no flash and you get a good effect

Sorry this is for us people who don't have the money and need to find a cheap option - was given one by a local photographer and its also good for the night owls who want to paint in the middle of the night and don't have special lights etc.

De

[pehiatt]

There are many solutions. One of the new florescent bulbs comes in daylight sizes up to 150 watts. I still recommend some kind of diffusion to cut small glare spots.

Solutions require experimenting to find results within budget.

One of the most important element remains...the camera used