Lighting Question?

[sandking]

Ok, I have taken several pictures with regular tungston lights and halogen lights and they have come out alright.

Last weekend I was in a rush so I just put my pen on a black piece of oak tag in the bay window. The sun was behind some clouds on a couple of pictures but they were the best pictures I've taken yet.

Is there a type of light that will give me the same colors or do I just need to shoot during the day?

Here is the link to the post with my pictures:

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21942

 

[Rudy Vey]

I use fluorescent bulbs in daylight light color, they can be found here:

http://www.1000bulbs.com/products.php?cat=42-Watt-Compact-Fluorescents

I use the 6500K bulbs.

 

[bradh]

What you are seeing is similar to what others are creating with their light tents or photo boxes. You have a significant amount of backlighting which is creating great highlights. These are the bands of white reflected light which empasize the gloss and hardware shine.
The overcast day, created an even lighting which allowed a good even picture exposure that shows great detail in the wood grain and hardware (ie threads, rings, ...).
Light boxes creat even lighting either by shining light through a diffuser material or reflect light off a non-gloss surface. Items such paper make good diffusers and reflectors. If you see professional photograpers work in a studio, you will see them use multiple lights with plenty of difussers and/or reflectors. What you don't see is all the time they spent playing with the distance between the light and the suject and the position of each light.
Hope this helps. A good book on photograghy can help you understand more.

 

[sandking]

Thanks. I built a cheap light box out of a cardboard box and some tissue paper. I still couldn't get it to look nice though.

 

[bradh]

Here are some things to look at with your set-up:
Is there a bright light (usually not diffused) to create the highlights. Some people use two or more highlights - this creates different effects.
Coloured reflectors and diffusers can change the colour of the light (were you using brown cardboard?)
Is the exposure of the subject even or do you need more light to get good exposure, more diffusion to even out the exposure, another light to light up a shadowed area?
Are you using the camera's flash? Sometimes the flash can overpower the rest of the setup, flashes need to be balanced with the other light sources.
Brad