Lighting Suggestions for a Room with No Natural Light

[Deleted member 7660]

Hi Guys,

I'm trying to setup a make-shift studio for taking photographs of computer parts for reviews. This will become a regular thing, so a decent setup might be a wise move. I'm looking to produce clear, professional looking shots on white backgrounds without too much messing around.

The only real place I've got with enough room is our partially converted loft. Lots of space, but zero natural light. It has two dual tube fluorescent light fixings, put end to end with a total of four 8ft tubes in them, this unfortunately isn't a great setup as on reflective surfaces it puts a streak of light through them. The quality of light isn't great and even with white balance settings I'm far from happy with the results.

I've purchased one of those white backgrounds on a roll, so I can put it up and take it down as needed.

Now solutions I can think of for the lighting situation are:

1. Get some daylight tubes and some diffusers for the fluorescent light fixings, not 100% sure it will solve the previously mentioned problem or provide enough light.

2. Get some proper photography lights/flashes on stands and just turn the fluorescent lights off.

3. Again turn the fluorescent lights off and use a portable flash, my current flash isn't great but once the white background arrives I can try this.

Ideally I'm looking for the cheapest solution, but if spending more money now makes things easier later on, I'm happy to do it.

Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark

 

[Garry Edwards]

Fluorescent tubes in some kind of an enclosure with a frosted front will do it in theory, but with any kind of product photography you need to be able to position the lighting very accurately, to either avoid reflections altogether or to create diffused specular highlights, and this will be a real problem with fluorescent tubes in a box. Also, although it may or may not be a problem with these products, fluorescent tubes have a very low Color Rendition Index and because of this some colours will reproduce very badly.

Your best and easiest answer is studio flash. It's very controllable, produces accurate colour and can be positioned exactly where you want it. The SmartFlash 2 head kit with 1 umbrella and 1 85 x 85cm softbox is ideal for your needs and will cost you £289.
With studio flash, the power produced is high enough to make any other artificial lighting in the room irrelevant, so you can leave the overhead lighting on if you want.

 

[DemiLion]

Had you thought about using a Light Tent? The one that I've got cost around £50 (admittedly discounted) and can easily fit a desktop, let alone component parts.

 

[Deleted member 7660]

Fluorescent tubes in some kind of an enclosure with a frosted front will do it in theory, but with any kind of product photography you need to be able to position the lighting very accurately, to either avoid reflections altogether or to create diffused specular highlights, and this will be a real problem with fluorescent tubes in a box. Also, although it may or may not be a problem with these products, fluorescent tubes have a very low Color Rendition Index and because of this some colours will reproduce very badly.

Your best and easiest answer is studio flash. It's very controllable, produces accurate colour and can be positioned exactly where you want it. The SmartFlash 2 head kit with 1 umbrella and 1 85 x 85cm softbox is ideal for your needs and will cost you £289.
With studio flash, the power produced is high enough to make any other artificial lighting in the room irrelevant, so you can leave the overhead lighting on if you want.

Thanks for the suggestion, cost wise that doesn't seem too bad actually. Everything I need appears to be in the kit... hmm.

Had you thought about using a Light Tent? The one that I've got cost around £50 (admittedly discounted) and can easily fit a desktop, let alone component parts.

Yes I do infact own one, but found it akward to use to be honest and the Fluorescent lights still shone through and created problems. Not to mention the background arrived very creased and no amount of ironing helped.