 Kalina J. Rumbalski |
Inexpensive Indoor Lighting Solutions I don't have any good lighting for indoor photography, and I don't have the income right now to buy a set. Are there any light bulbs I could buy and put into any conventional lamp?
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Mark Feldstein |
Greetings, Kalina. If you're talking about putting high-wattage photo flood lamps into like a table lamp, I wouldn't recommend that. You'll probably fry the lamp socket. What you can do, however, is go down to a local hardware store or a place like Lowes or Home Depot, and in their electrical department, you'll likely find some clamp-on type sockets with reflectors, either 6" or 10". You don't need to use them with photo floods, just regular bulbs. They're cheap, portable, pretty durable, and will help you control your lighting. OR, some of the quartz/halogen work lights might be what you need. They're available in 250 or 500 watt varieties. These are also relatively inexpensive, $10 - 20 bucks. You can even get them on stands. Look at the tool department at Sears also. If you're shooting on color film, you'll need to experiment to determine whether you have to use a filter when using incandescent lights. Depends on the effect you want. Take it light. Mark
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Pete H |
Hello, Kalina, The problem with using standard bulbs in a basic lamp socket is manyfold. Probably the three issues that will fight you the most are, "Amount or intensity", "Directivity" and "Color Problems." Good interior photography usually requires a lot of light ... even a 100-watt bulb is not that bright in the photographic world. Secondly, it is difficult to control "where" you want the light to fall. Mark's response is a good one given a limited budget ... at least with the inexpensive hardware store clamp-on reflector lights, you have "some" control over the "directivity" of the light. Finally, "color balance" using incandescent lights can be a real pain in the butt! Although many cameras can compensate for various light color sources, the incandescent bulb will fluctuate in color over just a few moments. If you shoot black and white, this color balance problem is NOT an issue obviously. Finally, if you do use lights with reflectors, try to diffuse the light ... i.e., hang some sort of "non-colored" (white) cloth or plastic in front of the lights. This will help reduce the harsh light and shadows associated with straight on lighting. Hope that helps a little. Pete
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Leonard Anderson |
Kalina, The book "Invitation to Portraiture", by Evelyn Zeek may be the answer to your question. She taught classes using what she described as the EZ method. She passed about five years ago but a search of the Internet should yield a source for the book. If you are not able to find it, I have the book and would happy to share it with you.
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Kalina J. Rumbalski |
Thank you! The ideas should point me in the right direction. Leonard I would be interested in looking a the book. I did a few seached on amazon and Barn n Noble, and I didn't find it.
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April Holahan |
Kalina, I have just recently begun taking portraits indoors and have set up a little studio in my garage. I made backdrops out of muslim material hung on a stand made out of PVC pipe and also have some very inexpensive lights that work just fine for me at the moment. I got the clamp lights at Home Depot that could support a 300 watt light bulb and went to a hardware store and got some 300W bulbs. Then I made some T stands out of 2 pieces of 2*4s from Home Depot. B&H Photo had 32" Optical White Umbrellas on sale for $12.95, so I got some of them. I drilled some holes at different levels into my stands to slide the umbrella in, and clamped my lights on and it has worked great for me. I have just experimented with different levels, positions of the stands, and shadowing by just having one light on. But, going back to other people's responses, I have only used these for black and white photography, so I am not sure about color. This was the cheapest way I could find, though, and they look nice. Hope this helps!
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- Shirley D. Cross-Taylor Contact Shirley D. Cross-Taylor Shirley D. Cross-Taylor's Gallery |
A lot depends on what you are photographing. If it is still life, the above solutions are great. If it is people, the lighting will be too slow. Another solution would be to purchase small inexpensive 'slave' flash units that can be placed in various positions and will be triggered by your camera's flash. If you have the ability for off-camera flash, all the better. These slaves can be purchased through Porter's Camera Store http://www.porters.com/, as well as other mail-order outfits listed in the back of most photo magazines.
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Norbert Maile |
There are available "Daylight Bulbs" which when used require no filters or color correction with color film. They are available in 250 and 500 watt but they run hot and only have a limited number of "good" hours before the color correction degrades. You could put them in a standard socket and make a reflector to direct the light where you want or for $150.00 you can buy a 3 light kit with stands sockets shades. The bulbs only cost about $5.00 each.
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Bob Chance |
Kalina: Check out this site.
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