Question about lighting?

Question

I'm not a photographer. I use photography as a tool for my work (painting).

I want to set up a part of my art studio for this purpose and I want to buy a small amount of medium quality lighting equipment.
I mostly use directional lighting as I like shadows, but a smaller secondary light source would be good too, so there could be some detail and reflection in the shadows.
Generally I like a warm highlight and a very dim blueish or cool secondary light source.
I haven't done this in a long time and I used to use transparency film, but now I will be working in digital.
Can anyone recommend some suitable lighting equipment for me and possibly give me an online link to a sensible setup scenario ? I realise I'm going to need adjustable stands to raise and lower the lights, which I have to be able to swivel around to get shadows how I want them.
Thank you, Lizzie :o)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16949082@N07/
http://notthetate.co.uk/lizzie not the best examples unfortunately

There are so many good answers here that I am not going to insult you by choosing a best answer on this one. Thank you all for your generous input, every bit of it is helpful. Lizzie :o)

Answer 1

I've used White Lightnings for at least 15 years, using the exact same kind of lighting you just explained. I like the WL because they're good in quality and priced very well. For the cool lighting you explained I use the WL and just a soft box. For the warm lighting I use the orange Jelled WL in the soft box or no soft Box if I use it as a kicker light or just want the specular effect. WL also has wireless radio remotes that also let you adjust the lighting up or down wirelssly. I love that feature.
http://www.white-lightning.com/

Answer 2

Hey Lizzie.

For you, I would recommend a continuous light source. There are the classic photofloods and quartz halogen photo lighting systems. Both of them are capable of producing both hard and soft transitions with suitable light modifiers. The quartz halogen systems are more flexible in this regard.

For the secondary light source, you may not need a light at all. You can bounce the main light off a reflector for the weak fill and the color of the fill will be the color of the reflector. This will be totally dependent on how you need to light your subjects.

Another option would be the flourescent photographic lighting systems, but these produce a much softer shadow transition by their nature.

Flash has a lot of advantages generally, but I am not sure that they would be worth it to you. They are more technically demanding to use and more expensive. However, there are very cheap systems available on e-bay that come out of China which will probably be more than you actually need and they are just a few hundred dollars. I don't really know anything about them because none of the photographers I know are going to use an unknown quantity like that. We depend on our equipment to earn a living. One thing that may be attractive is that they are color balanced to 5500 K and I think you have photo correct flourescents in your studio balanced the same. With flash, you won't have to turn the flouros off or worry about setting a custom WB.

Sam has my email address. If you want, send me a snapshot of something typical that you would shoot that also shows the surrounds. In other words, show me the work space. I will work with you on putting together the lighting you need and give you whatever pointers may help get the lighting effects you want.

As far as the lighting color goes, your shooting digital, so you would adjust the WB by kelvin temperature until it is as warm or cold as you want. Flash is 5500 Kelvin and would be neutral in color if your camera is set for daylight or flash. Set your white balance at anything higher and the camera will render it warmer.

Vance

Answer 3

A pair of monolight with a stand sounds good enough for you. Also, a boom you can attach to the stand can be very helpful.

Usually a light stand will allow you to adjust height and swivel. Tilting can also be done.

Now, the kind of attachment for the monolight is depend on how you want to shoot your object. Personally I like using softbox but some people also have honeycomb attachment, barn doors and snoot for some effects. I also have umbrella reflector for my pair of monolights which I usually use when I take wedding shoots.

A softbox will even out the light that is coming out from the monolight, while a reflector will do the opposite thing - it will make a relatively harsh light.

You might also want to use hot lights because it's cheaper than monolight but in the end a monolight is more flexible than a hotlight.

You didn't mention what camera you use but I think it's quite safe to say you have a hotshoe attachment in your camera. These can be used for a radio transmitter to sync up with a monolight system. Higher end camera also have PC connection. The radio transmitter is pretty cheap, starting from 20-30 bucks on entry level set.

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Hello Lizzie.

Visit shutterbug.com and do a Search for the Oct. 2006 & 2007 issues. October is the month that Shutterbug Magazine devotes to lighting. You'll find plenty of examples and advice.

Answer 5

Lizzie,

In my own studio I have had to consider what is goin on with my vision because I'm goin blind due to the diabetes and so forth.. Used to be I got to hang out with some pretty famous artist types, #1 was Melvin Warren from clifton,texas. He used to get around $70,000.00 per canvas and was booked 7 years in advance and thats how he bought his thousand acre ranch there in Clifton....his studio was pretty amazing, he had diabetes too and he diodnt like using undependable sunlight because it forced him to paint at certain times of the day and evening.....so he built his studio to capture sunlight as a copy!..........all his lighting was not directed at his canvas but rather it was directed at the sides and back of his studio so that he was lit from 3 sides plus the cieling for 4 sides. he used tungsten bulbs 160 watt. 120 volt. they arent cheap but the arent too bad either. he also installed what he called reflector flourescent guided scattering component lighting. all this is is just a flourescent fixture mounted beside another fixture upside down in the middle of the fixture box that he was putting in his cieling. I said the fixture were mounted upside down roght?...ok. the back of the box was covered in foil and the boxes were about 2 feet deep 4 feet 2 inches long 2 feet wide . The lights were used as the indirect bluish green effect and they were also ( important .... the higher voltage flourescents or high intensity ) he had four of these mounted ion his ceiling or in the rafters anyway and there were no windows at all in the room.......you could walk in at any given time and tune the lights to get any effect you wanted........you could turn it up (cuz he had rheostadts or tunable switches) on his bulb lighting. ( you cant do that on flourescent).......so, My present studio is a copy of that studio, I use the flourescents more and I use a high intensity blue green x 2 and a sunlight high intensity bulb x 2 and then two high intensity cool white lows and I have a four clip on tungsten ceramic pots that dont hardly get used, I only use them when I need a special effect........My studio is smaller than melvin's was, melvin died a few years back and I have moved on. James Boren also lived in Clifton and he had a studio that was actually an old house they lived in before he got really famous, he was the art director at the ocwboy hal;l of fame and museum in oklahoma city Oklahoma, before that he was the artist in res- and the art director at the air force academy in colorado springs, colorado, top gun school for the land base flyboys.....anyways, he liked using window light and told me once, you ought not works more than 8 hours a day in this business cuz if you do, you're workin beyond where you should be and you'll nevere get paid for it.....so use the lihgt thats there when it's there..........both two good really great schools of thought!.......so who ya gonna believe?....I beliueve i'll paint when I want to! and mostly when I need money..............the most important thing I have learned is that a candle can indeeed be burned at both ends but it can also be used to light other candles.......so all I need is a few more candles..........I dont know what that means at all but it really sounds cool eh?

Answer 6

sorry...i do not know anything about what it is that you need, but i saw some of your work and i really liked the owl painting...it was absolutely lovely (i love owls!)...best of luck to ya!

Answer 7

i find that VERY interesting