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home depot lighting
I received a Home Depot gift card and it reminded me of a roommate I had years ago that photographed primarily with Home Depot Lighting. I am curious if there is a segment of MM shooters that rely on such lighting. The results can be really amazing if there is enough thought put into the shot; and with use of the white balance settings the color temperature can easily be corrected. Anyone into Home Depot Lighting?? ;^)~ Dec 25 07 06:27 pm Link Creative Destruction wrote: Good for shooting models in a cold studio for short durations. Beyond that, the heat output for the amount of light you will need is too much for most model to bare for long durations. Dec 25 07 06:29 pm Link Get a big fan to keep things kool, but even that wont last too long... Dec 25 07 06:31 pm Link I SO wish I had the money back from all the cheap lighting crap I bought the 1st year I was photographing models, trying to save money. John Dec 25 07 06:36 pm Link My studio gets fairly cold but I rely on a portable heater with a good fan to keep the models warm. I shoot mostly strobe and have hotlights primarily for video work. Dec 25 07 06:38 pm Link Thought about it myself. Strobist has an article or two on it: http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/10/ho … s-and.html Dec 25 07 06:41 pm Link i love frosted halogen lamps for black and white 35mm. Dec 25 07 06:42 pm Link I thought about that concept 10 years ago. I went as far as to get a big quartz light and the adapter that would allow it to be placed on a light stand. Fire that sucker up and you (the photographer) put your hand in front of it for a minute. Then tell me if you would want to be the model in front of that light. That's your answer. Dec 25 07 06:43 pm Link Creative Destruction wrote: I know people that are, but i use a place called National Discount for their cheap but affective selection of lighting. Once in a while i splurge with walgreen's stuff. Dec 25 07 06:45 pm Link John Allan wrote: Amen to that. Dec 25 07 06:45 pm Link Creative Destruction wrote: I would think strobist flash setups would be a better choice most of the time. Dec 25 07 06:46 pm Link How about the florescent lighting from HD; its cheap , some handheld, and cool to the touch. I can see someone building a HD florescent contraption that produces beautiful lighting that can be easily color corrected. Dec 25 07 06:49 pm Link Creative Destruction wrote: Sure if you want to shoot at ISO 1600. Dec 25 07 06:50 pm Link Cheap alternative but not something that I'd have for the long haul. Dec 25 07 06:51 pm Link Chris Triance-Martin wrote: Great article! Dec 25 07 06:59 pm Link Creative Destruction wrote: imo, it's a very cost-efficient way to start putting the textbook principles into practice. Dec 25 07 08:33 pm Link home depot lights are crazy hot and require more effort to control/modify them. ie, you'll have a hard time softening the light because they produce so much heat you might end up melting/starting a fire w/ your diffuser. It can be done, obviously. just not easy... Dec 25 07 08:42 pm Link You will find this book very useful: "Low Budget Shooting- Do It Yourself Solutions to Professional Photo Gear" by Cyrill Harnischmacher http://www.rockynook.com/books/1-933952-10-5.html Dec 26 07 12:21 am Link Damon Banner wrote: Home depot lights are just like shooting with a 2500 or 5 k light there is never a problem with diffusing the light a simple 1/4 - 1/2 scrim works really great... Dec 26 07 12:28 am Link John Allan wrote: Agree 100%. Dec 26 07 12:37 am Link I used to use an old halogen I bought from Ace Hardware, same thing... but that was back when I was still shooting film. There is still actually one image on my port left over from those days. Dec 26 07 12:49 am Link Home Depot is for "Juannabes" BRIESE is where its at, Bitches. Dec 26 07 05:39 am Link i still use my hot lights... Dec 26 07 08:23 am Link Just got lights from Home Depot today. I wanted to learn basics before spending lots on strobes. This is what I did right after setting them up. For me it's a big step because I can now shoot some things other then on location. Dec 26 07 04:34 pm Link Ok, a side note, and sorry for hijacking the op's thread but this made me think of something myself. I use strobes but had the idea of a couple small constant lights(home depot variety) just for the sole purpose of putting gels infront of to cast colors on the background. So I have a couple of questions.... 1. How is this going to affect white balance in use as the same time as my strobes? And is the output going to be enough to even be seen over the strobes firing? 2. How would the gels color maintain since the white balance of the strobes and the small constant lights would obviously be different, would that make the cast from the gels a different shade in the shot calibrated for white balance of the strobes? Dec 26 07 04:39 pm Link I have some continuous lights I bought for a video project a few years back. Although I have Elinchrom strobes, I'm going to use the continuous lights for some upcoming shots with gobos. Other than the heat everyone is mentioning (which isn't that big a deal if your studio is a fridge in winter like mine), you'll have to open up your aperture quite a bit, because the light output of continuous light pales in comparison to strobes. Honestly, a far better option in my opinion is to use that gift certificate to buy things you can use as reflectors or diffuser panels and shoot in shaded sunlight. Your results will undoubtedly be much more pleasing. Dec 26 07 04:51 pm Link PYPI wrote: Very true and controlling fluoresent is difficult. Try to get a key and fill effect with that bouncing around. Dec 26 07 04:57 pm Link mw image wrote: If you look at my MM portfolio the third photograph is using three hot shoe flashes with umbrellas and one background quartz halogen light from HD type store, cool thing about this light is it has three settings 250 watt 500 watt and 750 watt in the photo it was set to 500 watt, this is a white limestone wall and the yellow tint from the light to me is a benefit in this shot, especially with the shadowing effect. To answerer some of your questions the dimmer the light the more effect the gel filter will have in coloring the light. Dec 26 07 09:03 pm Link i use home depot lights lol the duel 1000w work lights and several scoop lights althoiugh i bought em for a movie, i figure id use them until i got enough money for decent lights, but photography comes second to me and motion picture comes first so unfortunatly my photography lighting suffers Dec 26 07 09:14 pm Link PYPI wrote: yes and still on a tripod at 1/4th of second lol Dec 26 07 09:18 pm Link Every shot in my port was done using either worklights, or natural lighting. Except for one. Dec 26 07 09:22 pm Link PYPI wrote: Actually I know a guy that built a "ring" light out of like 12 FL tubes and just runs his camera in the fl white balance. He gets some pretty cool stuff with it. But mostly close in and of course the thing isn't anywhere near portable! Dec 26 07 09:23 pm Link GGDeluxe wrote: Saw this online.. "330cm FOCUS brolly set is about Euro 17 000.00 and up complete and then you have to supply a stand and a flash generator" anyone know if that is correct? damn expensive! Dec 26 07 09:32 pm Link I used to use a pair of Home Depot work lights - love them in the winter. And even better was a 550EX flash and a work light because they color balanced each other out a bit, back when I was starting out. I have a full set of studio strobes now with softboxes and all and I get much better pictures, but sometimes I think it was much more fun to use the work lights, even if they did tend to cast harsh shadows and I couldn't get them above 5feet in height. For essentially very little money you can get a work light and one reflector and that is enough to play with until you can decide what else you really need. Cheaper then the cheapest new lens for a DSLR. I will point out though there is a continuous light source available most days, just outside which is even better, although it's color balance changes throughout the day. Dec 26 07 09:42 pm Link A few months ago, someone posted a large ring light they made out of PVC and standard light sockets. It was about 6-8' in diameter, hexagonal in shape, looked really cool. I tried to find the original thread but couldn't. Instead of two 500w Halogen lights to illuminate and fry the model, you can get 500W equivalent CFL bulbs. In the above-mentioned ring light, you would have the equivalent of 4000W of luminescence and not heat the model at all. Dec 26 07 10:17 pm Link I have actually shot a bunch of stuff using work lights and was able to get some great shots with them. I don't use them much anymore but I still enjoy using the cheap little clip lights for some fun shadowed stuff. Got some great great shots using $8 clip lights with 100watt bulbs. It's all about playing and experiementing to get the feel that you want. The only real problem I found with the work lights was for when I was shooting pinup stuff on a white seamless. Little tough to get it nice and even. But the postcard with go go amy as well as the lighter pic was done with just work lights. ~Doc Dec 26 07 10:23 pm Link PYPI wrote: Well, here are a couple shots I'v done with florescent lights from Home Depot. Of course, they're close up, but both shot at iso 200, usually at 2.8 and around 1/50 sec. I have thousands of dollars in pro lighting, but just like like using a Holga can spark some creativity that you wouldn't normally find, so can the use of unusual lighting. Dec 27 07 01:57 am Link John Allan wrote: QFT. Dec 27 07 02:09 am Link PYPI wrote: Based on the reflection in her glasses I think I also have this light... and if it's the one I think it is, every time I bust it out the model gives me a "What the hell is THAT thing?" look. Dec 27 07 10:28 am Link swhnyc wrote: Well, it's hard to tell from glasses because every prescription reacts differently. SOme even show double reflections on each side even though there is only one tube on each side. That's one of the beauties of this series. These are two 3ft tubes in fixtures that I customized so that only the tube could be seen in the reflection and not the fixture. Here are a few others from the series. Dec 27 07 12:38 pm Link |