Questions about Photography Lighting...?

Question

Is there a simple floor lamp that I could buy to get some nice lighting to take pictues? I can't exactly afford a super nice one right now.

Answer 1

You can try a halogen floor lamp, 300-500wt, and build a frame to hold a piece of foamboard to bounce light around. You can probably do it for under $20 a light.

Answer 2

A tripod would probably help quite a bit. Alot will depend on your camera itself. If you have a $30 digital camera more light will be what you want. Higher wattage. But that will only help so much. Keeping your camera very steady will also help. Sunlight works really well, even reflected into the area you need it, and its realtively inexpensive, but its not what most would call reliable.

Alot depends on what you are trying to photograph. The smaller the subject the smaller the lighting you can effectively use. If your just trying to sell trinkets on eBay, set up two of your highest wattage lights you can on either side of the subject. Then put a white bed sheet (low thread count if possible) in front of the light to diffuse the light. Keep the light pretty close and you should do pretty good.

Answer 3

Depends on so many variables.

I've done some nice small scale shooting using two flexible-neck desk lamps and a light box made using tissue paper.

Check out the web. There are a lot of different homemade lighting aids etc that will allow you to utilize an inexpensive directional floor lamp.

The light box can be found on instructables.com

Answer 4

yes. I have used the free arm light set from Big lots for $10. Just have to use high watt bulbs, but the arm bends in two places and two lamps come in the box ( a desk and a tall stand along). Good luck!

Answer 5

A desk lamp with an adjustable arm that has a hood (for aiming the light.. not a lampshade).
$5-$20 at Target or Walmart.
The ones that are a big clip, so you can clip the light to tables or poles or whatever is good too.

Make sure you get the whitest lightbulb you can find. Don't get those offwhite or yellowish ones.

Answer 6

Rather than trying to fix 'blur' with a fast shutter speed, why don't you try holding the camera steady, instead? That's the proper way to do it. The faster the shutter speed, the less light comes out in your pictures (which is why they come out dark). You will need to use flash. Either the built in flash or an external flash (better), preferably with a bounce/swivel head (even better). Read your camera manual and/or a book on photography.

Answer 7

You could try a clip lamp with shield. Remove the shield, paint the inside, with a heat resistant, flat black paint.
Screw in a halogen bulb, and your set for a soft bounce back effect. Use gels or scrims and various watt bulbs to your liking. All for under $30.

Answer 8

If your shooting digital, you can adjust your white balance to compensate for the orange cast of any incandescent lighting, and also the green cast of fluorescent lighting, so just about any fixture/ bulb combo should work for you. If your shooting film, use tungsten balanced film for incandescents, or a color compensating filter for daylight balanced film, I use an 82 A, Tiffen (pale blue) for most indoor pics. You may use an FLD filter to correct fluorescent lighting.

Answer 9

As others have said, shop lamps are your best bet. But you'll need to be careful as they are hotttttt.

Answer 10

you can get a couple of inexpensive hallogen shop lamps... and using white lampshades, to filter the light, make some halfway decent lighting.