That's a good idea. Several years ago I bought some white nylon and
stapled it to a couple old 16 x 20 wooden frames - basically a DYI
diffuser. I wish I had hung onto them - tossed them when purging the
house of excess stuff.
On 2/28/2017 6:34 PM, Bruce Walker wrote:
Mark, here's an alternate diffusion suggestion: white rip-stop nylon
fabric from the fabric store. Quite cheap, very white, and fairly heat
resistant. It's essentially what soft boxes use.
On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 5:55 PM, Mark C <[email protected]> wrote:
I'm just doing desktop macro work with a couple of goose neck desk lights
and small pieces of white foam core for reflectors. Incandescent bulbs are
an option but the heat is a concern. I currently use wax paper to diffuse
the lighting - would need to rethink that approach with hot lights. In the
past I have used flashes, but need continuous light to take advantage of
pixel shift.
Mark
On 2/28/2017 11:29 AM, Bruce Walker wrote:
I agree that tungsten bulbs are generally quite good for faithful
colour, and it's easy to colour correct for them.
OTOH, they are hot as hell. :) I once did a fashion shoot using a
cheap $40 dual head 500W garage service light that I bounced off
reflectors inside a retail store, and just about cooked everybody. But
I loved the results.
And one really nice thing about tungsten is that, like a lot of old
film gear, nobody wants it and it's cheap. I was recently given a
Lowel Tota in great shape, with a heat-resistant silver umbrella.
Almost $200 new at B&H.
Those little common bayonet base tungsten halogen lamps with a 40
degree beam spread are great if you are lighting up close, like for
macro.
On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Mark C <[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks, Bruce. I'm not trying for exact color reproduction but just want
consistent results and reasonably rich colors. Some of the bulbs I've
tried
produce muddy colors and some are difficult to adjust / color correct.
I'll
continue experimenting and will take a look at the LED panels. I took a
look at the LED bulbs sold by B&W and they did not seem to have
remarkable
CRI ratings but were a lot brighter than what I can find retail.
From what I read it sounds like tungsten bulbs are generally excellent
at
color reproduction, so there is always that route as well.
Mark
On 2/27/2017 4:58 PM, Bruce Walker wrote:
Whether you need to worry about CRI or not depends on how fussy you
are. If you are shooting products (including fashion) for a living you
would (or should, anyway) be fussy and CRI is critical. Also if you
shoot people and like your skin tones to be well rendered, or natural.
So if you find that don't really care about CRI then any old light
sources will do and buying random LED bulbs until you get the results
you like will be fine.
But if you, like me, really do care about CRI then I suggest you stick
to LED panels and bulbs that are made for photography. Avoid all the
consumer products (eg whatever's on sale at Walmart). LEDs that are
made for commercial store displays have better CRI because they care
about colour rendition for stuff they are selling. I have some of
those by way of Amazon and they have surprisingly nice light.
See what B&H Photo or Adorama has available in your price range. The
500 and 1000 LED panels are reasonably priced these days and put out a
lot of good light. Fotodiox is a more budget source with good strong
lights.
Many photo LED panels use DC power, so definitely no flicker. AC
powered ones? Dunno.
Where I notice CRI making a huge difference is when I shoot with a
calibrated colour workflow -- ie using a colour-checker card, and
calibrating the monitor with a colorimeter. Then I can really see what
normal consumer room lights do to skin versus shooting with strobes
that have a very high CRI. I can even tell the difference between
shooting with Profoto pack and head strobes and the less expensive
Paul Buff lights.
On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 3:30 PM, Mark C <[email protected]> wrote:
Does anyone here have advice about selecting LED lights for studio
work?
I've tried several consumer bands with mixed results. I understand that
the
color rendering index (CRI) rating is supposed indicate how well the
bulb
displays colors, but my experience so far has not shows any strong
correlation between that actual results.
So far I've tried 4 different brands of bulbs, with the best results
coming
from Earthtronic bulbs with a mediocre CRI 81 and the worst coming from
GE
Reveal with a respectable CRI 93. IMO, the Reveal bulb was the least
accurate of all four brands that I tried in terms of color rendition
and
also banded noticeably (do LEDs flicker?)
So - how do you tell what LED's will work the best - or it just trial
and
error?
Mark
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