Choosing A Lighting Source
The White Balance Feature On Your Camera
Learning how to use the White Balance feature on your camera will allow you the freedom to use many different types of lights. With it, you can use desk lamps, fluorescent lamps or even shop lamps found at a hardware store and produce great photographs.
Before I talk about what type of light works best with Internet Product Photography let me tell you about the White Balance feature on digital cameras.
Indoor lighting doesn't produce the same spectrum of colors that sunlight does. Our eyes and minds automatically compensate for these differences and adjust the color message, so we aren't aware of an unnatural hue in the light.
Although a standard incandescent light bulb appears to produce white light, it actually produces yellowish colored light our eyes seems not to notice. However, to a film or digital camera, light from a standard light bulb is indisputably yellow. To our eyes, a standard fluorescent bulb also appears white. To a film or digital camera, most fluorescent bulbs throw off a greenish or bluish light. If we use standard incandescent or fluorescent bulbs as a light source, they can distort the colors in our photographs.
In digital photography, the camera has a control called "White Balance" that can automatically compensate for variations in color temperature (that's the term used for different color of light). You can set your digital camera's white balance to tell the camera what type of light you are using and it will adjust the color balance of the final image. (See your camera's in-struction manual for more on setting the white balance).
Learning how to use the White Balance feature on your camera will allow you the freedom to use many different types of lights. With it, you can use desk lamps, fluorescent lamps or even shop lamps found at a hardware store and produce great photographs.
If you are on a tight budget, go ahead and use the lights you already have around the house.
One word of caution:
don't mix light sources. In other words, don't use a desk lamp on one side and a fluorescent fixture on the other side. A digital camera can correct for one color light - but it cannot compensate for two different color temperatures in the same picture.
For many years I used two 500-watt, halogen shop lights as my main lighting for product shots. They are inexpensive and provide nice, strong light. The problem with halogen lights, however, is that they are very hot to work with. In one case, I almost melted the item I was photographing! The other limitation I faced was that shop lights don't always come with stands. I was forever looking for something to set them on or some way to prop them up for better angles.
The first thing I purchased, when my budget allowed, was a professional light set that included adjustable stands. The set has light holders that allowed me the freedom to use the new, cooler, compact fluorescent daylight balanced bulbs. The whole set-up folds away neatly into a small corner of my office when not in use. This equipment is very affordable, especially on
eBay. I didn't need to put off buying it for as long as I did. Look into the light kits that are now available. You may be surprised at how affordable they are! And professional light set-ups are designed to be easier to work with.
The best way to reduce or eliminate the need to color correct images is to use color corrected light bulbs. Both incandescent and fluorescent bulbs are available in color corrected versions. I recommend daylight balanced, compact fluorescent bulbs. These bulbs normally fit standard light fixtures, but they produce three to four times as much light as incandescent light bulbs using the same amount of energy. That means you can use a 20 watt CFL instead of a 60 watt incandescent light. And since the compact fluorescent bulbs use much less energy, they are much cooler to work under than incandescent bulbs. Daylight balanced compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) are more difficult to find than standard bulbs and they typically cost $15 to $25 each. However, they are by far the easiest light source to work with. The higher initial cost of these bulbs is offset by the fact that the bulbs last for thousands of hours and use so little electricity.
What Type Of Set-Up Works Best For Internet Product Photography?If your goal is nice pictures of your items for sale that you can produce quickly and with as little set-up as possible choose a continuous light set-up. Here's why:
Flash Lighting vs. Continuous Lighting:- With flash, you can't really tell what the lighting looks like until you have taken the picture.
- Continuous lighting allows for "What you see is what you get" modeling.
- If you use more than one strobe, the strobes must be synchronized with each other and with the camera shutter.
- Strobes are generally more expensive than continuous lights.
There are situations in which professional quality strobes work better than continuous light sources. If the subject is moving, for instance, then the short duration of the strobe's flash can help to "freeze" the subject. Even a relatively slow moving subject will cause a blurred image. But, how many times has a knick-knack jumped up and started moving?
When a shot requires depth of field, a small aperture (lens opening) is used. This smaller aperture means more light is necessary for a properly exposed image. In most cases, the additional light can be gained by simply increasing the exposure time. However, there are occasions where the exposure time cannot be increased enough to produce the required amount of light. In those cases, the intense light of a strobe light is useful.
Again, using affordable professional lighting equipment is not necessary, but it sure makes setting up your shots a lot easier. If you are interested in continuous light sets or want more information, please feel free to check out my eBay Store: CloverCitySells
Good Luck!
Cindy Shebley
author: Easy Auction Photography
