Basic lighting setup help needed

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fruitloop

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mike
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Would anyone be kind enough to advise me on which lights I could/should use to photograph clothing that I mostly lay on the floor on a board with differing background colors according to the color of the garment I am taking a shot of.
The reason I need some simple lighting setup is that I always take the shots indoors and sometimes there is not enough natural light to get a good enough shot.
I am new to photography and am using a Canon S95 for my pics.

Many thanks.
 
To keep it really simple I would look at the HDV-Z96 (Z-Flash) LED Video Light - Don't


You can pick these up for ebay - they come with a tungsten and daylight filter it can be fitted onto a light stand - make sure you set the white balance on you camera to match the light souce.

Hope that helps

Ian....
 
You can use any lights (home or photographic). As you're shooting still life any light will do the job - the only issue is house lights need longish exposures. Experiment using lamps etc, there's no need to spend loads of cash on photographic lights. Look on the Internet for cheats and tips. The only issue you'll have is the White balance and colour hue - both can be easily corrected in post production.
 
sdrphotography said:
You can use any lights (home or photographic). As you're shooting still life any light will do the job - the only issue is house lights need longish exposures. Experiment using lamps etc, there's no need to spend loads of cash on photographic lights. Look on the Internet for cheats and tips. The only issue you'll have is the White balance and colour hue - both can be easily corrected in post production.
Click to expand...

All are sounding really good tips here and I really appreciate the help offered to me.
 
What you need most of all is a tall tripod with a horizontal column so you can get your camera above the clothing and keep it stable for long exposures at ISO 100. Manfrotto 055XPROB is one choice but you will find cheaper options... or just improvise something :)

With a compact camera like the S95 you cant shoot "tethered" (connect camera via USB to laptop and fire away from there with a big screen preview) so I guess you want to use the self timer to take the shots. With the camera stable, you can use a smaller aperture and ISO 100 to get sharper pictures and no noise as you don't have to worry about the exposure time.

Also get a folding reflector with white & silver at least on it. These are cheaper than additional lights and reflected light is usually just as good ;)

Then you can start experimenting with 1-2 lights (or a window) and the reflector.
 
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