What lights for a lastolite hilite?

[Phil V]

Yes, and I realise this seems almost offensive to professional photographers, but I am a clothing seller not a photographer, and presently my greatest need is faster produced photos, not better.

And you’re incorrectly looking for offence.

a proper camera attaches seamlessly to proper lights making the process more streamlined.

I presently have 4 softboxes. They are pretty big

See above - softboxes arent lights, what’s your light source, and how big are they in cm or inches ‘pretty big’ means nothing.

 

[Nickyy]

Yes, I was thinking the softbox is the light....?
That ebay product does not come with a stand. I was looking for one, couldn’t find one, so gave up on it when I found the Hilite and thought that could work for me instead.

Then just before I thought Garry’s lencarta stand could hold the strip softbox, but apparently not, and I think I’m now losing the will to live entirely. Getting rid of a bit of grey 3 feet up from the floor should not be this complicated.

 

[Nickyy]

My softboxes are 28” x 20” when open. The lowest position puts the centre light 30” up from floor level.

 

[Nickyy]

“Something like this will do https://www.dx.com/p/godox” Thank you Garry. So these are small lights, and put on the little Lencarta stands I can put them on the floor either side under my softboxes to illuminate the bottom 3’ of background grey into white?

 

[Garry Edwards]

“Something like this will do https://www.dx.com/p/godox” Thank you Garry. So these are small lights, and put on the little Lencarta stands I can put them on the floor either side under my softboxes to illuminate the bottom 3’ of background grey into white?

So, each light goes on to a stand. A softbox then fits on to each light. The stands are then adjusted so that each softbox is only just off the floor, job done. Light spreads over distance, so with a pair of softboxes of adequate size, and a bit of distance, the entire backdrop will light evenly enough for your purpose, floor to ceiling.

My softboxes are 28” x 20” when open. The lowest position puts the centre light 30” up from floor level.

Two problems there then. Firstly the softboxes are far too small, secondly the stands that they're on are far too tall, which means that the light doesn't reach low enough. 2 of these https://www.lencarta.com/all-produc...lla-folding-softbox-lencarta-bowens-speedring will be fine, other makes are also available.

 

[Phil V]

My softboxes are 28” x 20” when open. The lowest position puts the centre light 30” up from floor level.

Small - med then.

 

[Garry Edwards]

I've just remembered, I made a video on lighting a white background some years ago.
I used white reflective umbrellas for this, they're fine for when people are being photographed but softboxes produce more even lighting and so are better for products.

 

[Nickyy]

Phil “Small - med then.” Yes, I suppose on reflection they are. However, they seem enormous when I’m tripping over 4 sets of the damned legs and wires and they’re threatening to topple over when they are 8’ up .
The light source is a spiral shaped bulb in the middle of the softbox. Two of my softboxes have 4 spiral bulbs each. The first two are Chinese tat. The second two I guess are a small step up from that.

Garry, I did originally seek the strip softboxes, but gave up when I couldn’t figure all the separate components required and just the stands seemed to be circa £150 each. At that point the Hilite seemed a much better option, for cost, guaranteed desired effect, and space saving. If I get 2 strip softboxes, with stands etc, will that do away with needing smaller lights underneath? I also worried that the light cast might not be wide enough across the background?

 

[Phil V]

Garry, I did originally seek the strip softboxes, but gave up when I couldn’t figure all the separate components required and just the stands seemed to be circa £150 each. At that point the Hilite seemed a much better option, for cost, guaranteed desired effect, and space saving. If I get 2 strip softboxes, with stands etc, will that do away with needing smaller lights underneath? I also worried that the light cast might not be wide enough across the background?

Mmm
Your issue though is you didn’t know what else you’d need.
Even if the hi lite was your whole background (I’m convinced you’re often enough going to have some floor to light), to light it would take 2 or 4 lights possibly on stands. So you’ve made a small space saving, but increased rather than reduced the cost.

the only time I’ve ever set up a hi lite it was lit with 4 speedlights, 2 on the floor on their feet and 2 higher on stands.

I think 2 large strip boxes on short stands would be easier to work round and less expensive.

One of your problems with those cheap softboxes is that you’ve got 2 that are much brighter (4x?) than the other 2 presumably with no control over the brightness.

 

[Faldrax]

One thing that has not been asked, but might have a bearing on which softboxes to get, is if you leave everything set up from day to day, or if you set up, take a bunch of shots, then pack away to use the space for other purposes, repeating as required.
If the latter, then it's worth considering foldable softboxes - this is a link to the foldable version of the Lencarta Gary suggested earlier;

https://www.lencarta.com/all-produc...rip-softbox-lencarta-bowens-140-x-27cm-sof067

You pay a bit more for them, but it's money well spent saving the time and frustration of trying to frequently assemble / disassemble regular softboxes.
Of course, if you're intending to set up and leave everything then the regular ones are fine.

 

[Jelster]

If the main issue is the white fading to grey at the bottom, would the longer rectangular softboxes help, and it's a lot less than £400??

Edit: I see Garry has mentioned the strip softboxes... I'll go and stand in the corner....

 

[Garry Edwards]

One thing that has not been asked, but might have a bearing on which softboxes to get, is if you leave everything set up from day to day, or if you set up, take a bunch of shots, then pack away to use the space for other purposes, repeating as required.
If the latter, then it's worth considering foldable softboxes - this is a link to the foldable version of the Lencarta Gary suggested earlier;

https://www.lencarta.com/all-produc...rip-softbox-lencarta-bowens-140-x-27cm-sof067

You pay a bit more for them, but it's money well spent saving the time and frustration of trying to frequently assemble / disassemble regular softboxes.
Of course, if you're intending to set up and leave everything then the regular ones are fine.

You're right. I thought that the OP said that she has a permanent setup, but maybe I imagined that, can't find it now.

Phil “Small - med then.” Yes, I suppose on reflection they are. However, they seem enormous when I’m tripping over 4 sets of the damned legs and wires and they’re threatening to topple over when they are 8’ up .
The light source is a spiral shaped bulb in the middle of the softbox. Two of my softboxes have 4 spiral bulbs each. The first two are Chinese tat. The second two I guess are a small step up from that.

Garry, I did originally seek the strip softboxes, but gave up when I couldn’t figure all the separate components required and just the stands seemed to be circa £150 each. At that point the Hilite seemed a much better option, for cost, guaranteed desired effect, and space saving. If I get 2 strip softboxes, with stands etc, will that do away with needing smaller lights underneath? I also worried that the light cast might not be wide enough across the background?

They'll be perfect, the light will reach the floor and they will be set up to cross over - left one lights the right hand side of the background and vice versa and this will produce an evenly lit white background that will be wider than you need it to be for this purpose, don't worry about it.

I was wondering about your existing lighting and suspected that you may be using those horrible fluorescent lights, as anyone on here will tell you I don't like LED lights either (flash is so much better) but flash requires a real camera, and once you get better equipment it will be like a breath of fresh air

This thread has gone round in circles a bit, so for the avoidance of doubt, what you need is
1. LED lights of this type http://go.talkphotography.co.uk/?id...66c527f1e17a87&xjsf=other_click__auxclick [2]
2. 2 of the low level lighting stands
3. 2 of the strip softboxes.

And, not essential but would speed up the workflow, a turntable.

And finally (although I'm not holding my breath on this one) I strongly recommend that you ditch the ipad and get a real camera, tethered to any decent computer. Not only will it produce much better image quality, you will also be able to run really good editing software such as Photoshop, because decent editing will make a massive improvement to your final images, which will improve sales. It will also make the process both easier and faster. There are people here who can help you with the editing process, it will be a bit of a learning curve but once you've got past that it will save you time too. I don't have an ipad and may be wrong about its capabilities, but my own Android version would be an absolute pain to use for image editing.

It takes years of experience, a heavy capital investment and a decent basic understanding of physics to become a specialist product photographer but even a non-photographer with a minimum of equipment can become very proficient at photographing a single sub-set such as clothes on a mannequin. If you want evidence of this, and have time to spare, take a look at this thread, which is even longer than yours https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/fluorescent-or-halogen-help-needed.365254/

 

[HoppyUK]

It's worth mentioning that there are very efficient and affordable editing services, mainly operating out of India I think. I've never used them but others on here maybe have.

Did you look into this Nickyy? A quick google of 'clipping path services' brings up loads of them, apparently starting from under 50p per image for a basic cut-out! That is the full extend of my knowledge, other than to say these services are very popular with on-line sellers facing the same problems as yourself.

But I can't help thinking that, particularly with your line of quality products, some fundamentally better photography would enhance your business. Attractive images that show colour, shape and texture accurately would surely both increase sales and save costs in reduced returns.

We're all reading between the lines of your posts and no doubt coming to some wrong conclusions, but here's another line of thinking. Get a better camera and a couple of studio flash heads (starting under £100) with softboxes. Concentrate on lighting the dresses (we've hardly touched on that yet) and pretty much ignore the background - with a white backdrop quite close behind it'll come out light grey anyway so that a fast and affordable cut-out service can easily sort it to white.

I understand your frustration that things are not as easy or straightforward as you imagine, but that's a common mistake. Smartphones have given everyone the impression that photography today is just a matter of pressing the button. But we're not talking selfies here, snapped on a nice sunny day - that's easy, they're just 'recording' a subject that's already in front of the camera and in God's good light. What you're needing to do is both 'create' the subject in the first place, and then light it properly - totally different. And white backgrounds are notoriously tricky as they have to be treated as a separate subject, plus there's the main subject, and then the two must be carefully balanced together - so that's three challenges for starters.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but your question is a bit like asking what saucepans are needed to cook a resturant quality dinner, when you don't have a kitchen, no recipe or ingredients, and have never cooked anything apart from a microwave meal before

 

[Garry Edwards]

Did you look into this Nickyy? A quick google of 'clipping path services' brings up loads of them, apparently starting from under 50p per image for a basic cut-out! That is the full extend of my knowledge, other than to say these services are very popular with on-line sellers facing the same problems as yourself.

But I can't help thinking that, particularly with your line of quality products, some fundamentally better photography would enhance your business. Attractive images that show colour, shape and texture accurately would surely both increase sales and save costs in reduced returns.

We're all reading between the lines of your posts and no doubt coming to some wrong conclusions, but here's another line of thinking. Get a better camera and a couple of studio flash heads (starting under £100) with softboxes. Concentrate on lighting the dresses (we've hardly touched on that yet) and pretty much ignore the background - with a white backdrop quite close behind it'll come out light grey anyway so that a fast and affordable cut-out service can easily sort it to white.

I understand your frustration that things are not as easy or straightforward as you imagine, but that's a common mistake. Smartphones have given everyone the impression that photography today is just a matter of pressing the button. But we're not talking selfies here, snapped on a nice sunny day - that's easy, they're just 'recording' a subject that's already in front of the camera and in God's good light. What you're needing to do is both 'create' the subject in the first place, and then light it properly - totally different. And white backgrounds are notoriously tricky as they have to be treated as a separate subject, plus there's the main subject, and then the two must be carefully balanced together - so that's three challenges for starters.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but your question is a bit like asking what saucepans are needed to cook a resturant quality dinner, when you don't have a kitchen, no recipe or ingredients, and have never cooked anything apart from a microwave meal before

Yes, contracting out the editing is a solution. I used Clipping Paths Asia for years, I then employed someone to do it for me, which was cheaper. Their quality and service are excellent and, because they are in a different time zone all images uploaded to them last thing at night would be ready for me first thing next morning. But some caution is needed, this firm is in Thailand and several of their very poor competitors have used the "clipping paths asia" keywords to divert the web traffic to themselves..

No, we haven't touched on the product lighting yet. My guess is that Nickyy will follow my equipment suggestions and will then be happy, or at least much happier, and if she wants further improvement then my advice would be identical equipment for lighting the subject with an additional on axis fill light, but that's for the future, let's deal with the problem that she accepts that she has for now.

Yes, she should certainly get a halfway decent camera and flash, and if she decides to go down that route then we can offer advice.

 

[mike weeks]

Gaaah! I think my will to live is expiring . We’ve been able to put astronauts on the moon for over half a century and all I’m hearing is we can’t light up a piece of

Physics put man on the moon and it also explains why it is so difficult to light a piece of paper, now you know why there is a difference between a man with a camera and a professional photographer - you are being given some really good advice here
Mike

 

[Studio488commercial]

Wow....... I think I cracked it, all these years wasted, all I needed was a hiltie 4 x 1200w strobes on full power, ( really exciting popping noise and a funny smell but that adds to the studio ambiance) No control over the camera thing I am using, but most photography can do without the complications anyway.......surprising good results. As a side note, my retinas seem to be stinging a bit, do all photography people suffer from this? If so can you just wear sunglasses and are there any special photographic ones?

ps this is not a pic of me, no one should own a jacket like this, unless you attend group photography sessions shooting naked ladies.