LED Lighting For Woodworking Photos

[W.Y.]

In the main micro shop I have two spiral fluorescent lights and one double 4' tube fluorescent. Could never get natural looking pictures in there so recently was taking pictures in front of a window in the house with natural daylight which was better .After adding on a small shop addition I put up two double 4' LED fixtures . Oh my , what a difference . Right on for natural colours and hardly any shadow . Pictures taken with my cell phone without any editing or manipulation whatsoever . Aim and click and posted directly like that .

 

[SteveG]

The photo looks great. Simple is good!
These bowls end up twisting my eyeballs out of their sockets, but I am able to get 'em back in! :biggrin:

 

[W.Y.]

The photo looks great. Simple is good!
These bowls end up twisting my eyeballs out of their sockets, but I am able to get 'em back in! :biggrin:

Yep . .. they're not called Dizzy bowls for nothing . :biggrin: Glad they performed as expected for you . :wink:

 

[Dehn0045]

Incredible bowls and very nice photos! I just put in four 4ft LEDs in my garage, I think the light they put off is much more natural, I love them. I'm gonna try to taking my photos out there next time

 

[Charlie_W]

Great looking bowls...and the pic too!

I just don't want to think of those bowls spinning on turntables while wearing 3D glasses. :biggrin:

 

[leehljp]

I'm glad you discovered this and shared it here. Too many people overlook how well good lighting affects the photo and enhances the object. I am not anywhere near a photography expert and do not understand the lighting jargon, but I do know that good lighting makes better photos.

Another thing is that many people like & use soft white, yellowish tint and do not realize how using that affects the outcome - in a negative way.

I had fluorescent bulbs that did fine - but I knew what I was looking for and had to search for the right ones and didn't settle for less than the right tones or what ever it is called. I have moved over to LED bulbs over my lathes and work table area.

 

[Phillip Kelley]

rings...

How did u cut the segmented rings?

 

[RileyD]

If you are stuck with fluorescent lights, look for the white balance setting on your camera. There's usually a setting for fluorescents and it'll get rid of that blue cast you get.

 

[W.Y.]

If you are stuck with fluorescent lights, look for the white balance setting on your camera. There's usually a setting for fluorescents and it'll get rid of that blue cast you get.

If you are seeing a blue cast it is your PC or whatever you are viewing it on. I take all my photos with my latest cell phone that blows away all previous digital cameras I have had . It has settings but works so good on automatic , that's all I use . Even pictures of snow come out snow white so no need for fiddling around with manual controls on that phone camera .
I could never get snow pictures without a blue tint on previous cameras on automatic so with them I did have to use manual settings which is a P I T A when switching from one type of light source to another . With this phone camera , the automatic mode really does change automatically from one source of lighting to another .

 

[W.Y.]

How did u cut the segmented rings?

Sorry for the late reply and your question could run into a longer discussions than I have time for here because my own Woodworking Friends site keeps me very busy and there have been many long threads of several pages each on the subject because there are so many different ways to cut segmented rings. Some are so much more accurate and easier to set up than others .
Every one of the types of bowls I have been showing are made from one flat board whether it is all one piece board or a laminated board or a segmented board or a combination of the three but the bowls always start out as one very flat board .

There are actually no segments cut at all in the three dizzy bowls shown above . Those started out as just one laminated board.. . I don't take credit for the design . I had a good teacher on my WWF site who is a Pro turner and woodworker . The purpose of the picture was to show how much better LED lighting is compared to fluorescent .

 

[mdavis]

The technically correct term for tones is "color temperature". All bulbs are rated as to their color temperature. A "blue-white LED" is around 5000 degrees Kelvin. An incandescent is less than 2000 degrees. The many flavors of fluorescent bulbs fall in between these numbers. Nest time you buy bulbs that are what you want, pay attention to the label and make a note of the color temperature. Then you can get the same "tones" regardless of the fancy words on the box.