Fluorescent lighting?

[Rick Hiott]

Playing around in the shop again,,,,I have a 2'X4' light on each side of her.
This is my wife Eve. I know the background is a little distracting but how does this look?
Do you think I have something here that I can work with as far as the lighting goes?

[Alfred D.]

Originally Posted by Rick Hiott

Playing around in the shop again,,,,I have a 2'X4' light on each side of her.
This is my wife Eve. I know the background is a little distracting but how does this look?
Do you think I have something here that I can work with as far as the lighting goes?

Looks like you do, doesn't it? But I'd apply it differently: either both closer to the subject, to get more of an all around super soft 'wrap-around' effect, or more oriented to one side (left?), to get more of a 'character shot' type image.

[Harry]

Too flat and there's a color cast as well. (I'd identify the color cast were I not color blind) If you are going to try and use these, then you at least need to try and get a difference in intensity between the two lights.

[Lee4145]

Looks like you went with auto white balance. I'd do a custom and see if that helps.

Also search on this forum and you should turn up some threads on fluorescent lighting. There have been some threads here about just this subject. It's a good start. Keep working.

[heartseye]

Fluorescents have some holes in the color spectrum.......you can combine different kinds....but it's really tricky to get it perfect......

[Rick Hiott]

For what its worth,,,All of the bulbs are the same at 7000 kelvin

[Brooks]

Rick,

There are several issues with using fluorescent lights for still photography.

The color balance of fluorescents is usually green or green/blue as you can see in the skin tones of your model. You can correct that to a point but because fluorescent sources are actually deficient in certain wavelengths it's not possible to completely correct the color.

An exception would be if you were buying and using KinoFlo fluorescents which have a much better color response than household bulbs. KinoFlos are used often in the motion picture industry and are as expensive, if not more expensive, than professional studio flash equipment.

Another concern is the limited amount of light available from fluorescent fixtures. Household fluorescents and KinoFlos are equally bad in this regard. For example, what ISO, shutter speed and f-stop were you able to use in your sample photo? Do you want to be limited to a high ISO, slow shutter speed and wide aperture all the time?

[Rick Hiott]

ISO was 100
Shutter speed was 160
Fstop was 2.5

I'm getting plenty of light. This is the new style bulbs with an electronic ballast. They put out more light than the old style bulbs.

[Brooks]

Originally Posted by Rick Hiott

ISO was 100
Shutter speed was 160
Fstop was 2.5

I'm getting plenty of light. This is the new style bulbs with an electronic ballast. They put out more light than the old style bulyour bs.

Rick,

That's NOT a lot of light. Suppose you want some depth of field for a group of two people or more and need to shoot at f8, closer to the ideal f-stop for sharpness that your lens has. Often you'll want even more depth of field than f8 but I use that just as an example.

At an ISO of 100 you'd need 1/20 th second shutter speed to be able to shoot at f8. Suppose you also needed to move the light farther from the subject to create greater "depth of exposure" ?

There are very good reasons most professional photographers use electronic flash in their studios such as cleaner color, easy adjustability of power, Larger quantities of power (more light) and the ability to use a wide range of light modifyers.

[Rick Hiott]

Thanks!! I thought it might be enough to work with............................

They were free,,I thought it might be worth a try.

[Brooks]

Rick,

I'm not saying you can't learn some lighting techniques using those fluorescent lights, I just wouldn't waste money buying them for serious use.

Since you got them for free then have at it.

For portraits, you might try using them on one side instead of both sides of the camera. Use a large white foam-core reflector on the shadow side, opposite the light. You'll get much better 3 dimensional modeling on your subject's face.

[Rick Hiott]

No problem,,,I understand. I don't do enough portrait work to need the big flash units. I like the table top, product photogarphy............

That's what I was gonna do the next time i used them, Put both lights on one side and use a reflector. Thanks!

[Rick Hiott]

Any way,,I got up and went out in the shop about 45min ago and set the backdrop, Moved one of the lights and used my reflector.
She was in the car ready to go to work when I asked her to give me just a min of her time,,,So,, I only had time for this one shot with the timer on and me guessing at the angle while holding the reflector.
I think from looking at it that she was a little to close to the light, and I was a little off on the reflector.
I think I'm getting there..............
S.S. was 100"
F-Stop was 2.2
at 100 ISO

[Brooks]

Much nicer light on this one, Rick.

[Benji]

I am tempted to try this type of lighting but If I were to do it I would use three of the type of fixtures that hold four flourescent bulbs each in them (I would pop rivet them together) and then I would add three of the small round medium base light bulb sockets per fixture for a total of 12 sockets. These would be added in between the ballasts in the center of each fixture (there is lots of room in between them), then I would put 12-100 or possibly even 200 watt regular incandescant light bulbs into them. That would boost the reds that the green flourescent bulbs are lacking in. My guess is that would give one around f/5.6 or so at ISO 100 at about three or four feet away.

The entire light would be about 48 x 53 or the size of a large softbox, and I'll bet it would work quite well. It would be quite heavy however (although probably lighter than my Photogenic Studio Master II's!)

Benji

[Brooks]

Here you go Benji Kino Flo | VistaBeam 300 DMX, Center Mount (120V) | VIS-3C-120

Kino Flo 288 watt fluorescent light for $2250. Very light, dimmable, mounts easily on a light stand or ceiling grid.

[Uncle Frank]

Originally Posted by Brooks

At an ISO of 100 you'd need 1/20 th second shutter speed to be able to shoot at f8.?

Since his XTi is famous for low noise at high iso settings, why couldn't he hold the shutter speed and just increase sensitivity to iso400. A fast shutter is important for continuous lighting.