Cheap lights: Will these work?

[Vetteography]

Cheap lights. That's the focus of this beginners search. I want to build a mini-studio in a spare room of my house. The walls suck, the natural lighting sucks, the space is minimal but it is what I have to work with.

I was at home depot today and I was picking up a couple of lights so I could do some duct work in the attic. These are inexpensive, halogen lamps and they throw some serious light. As I put these in my cart along with the ducting, tim flashing etc, I started wondering if these would do double duty as studio lights.

http://www.bastaards.org/Misc/Pictures/Lights.jpg

A grand total of $27.85 for these three and they can completely light up a medium sized room. 2 are aimable for elevation and light enough to perch on just about anything including a tripod. The third has a clamp and a hanger so it is pretty flexible.

To diffuse the light so I don't get hard shadows, I have a bunch of lexan and plexiglass laying around from other projects and I was thinking of glazing the lexan to use as a diffuser.

Does this sound do-able?

[scottbergerphoto]

They will work but :
1. you have to be careful about the heat build up, the risk of fire and someone getting burned and
2. you will neeed to do a custom white balance each time you shoot

[Longwatcher]

I also recommend that you pull the grill off the front as it tends to cast shadows you might not want. But warning that that front glass panel gets hot, which why that grill is there.

Worked great for me until I got my ABs.

[Vetteography]

Thanks for the tips. Sounds like these will do the trick until I get more serious about this hobby ;) :p

[DocFrankenstein]

My limited experience says they won't work.

If you plan on using them directly, they're powerful enough. At 6 feet, they give you f/11 at 1/50 seconds ISO 100...

But once you start diffusing them, you'll need about 4 kW to be able to get sufficient shutter speeds.

I almost bought them, but then decided not to bother.

Cheers

[Vetteography]

Here is my first test. The camera is on a tripod in my junk room, everything on automatic and shots made with a remote.

Natural light coming from a window

http://www.bastaards.org/Misc/Pictures/Bear_NaturalLight.jpg

With 2 lights one, one bounching from the ceiling and the smaller one pointed at an angle downwards toward the bear. You can see the hard shadows from the chair and the shadows under the chin.

http://www.bastaards.org/Misc/Pictures/Bear_BareLights.jpg

Last one is with a piece of glazed lexan difusing the smaller, downward pointing light and a piece of posterboard reflecting light from the lower unit towards the bear.

http://www.bastaards.org/Misc/Pictures/Bear_Diffused_and_Reflected.jpg

All in all, I would say my $30.00 studio lights are a success. Are they professional quality? No way, but they should do for the hobbyist. I think that with the third light pointing in from the left, I would be set. I didn't have another spare extension cord so I only used two.

[jimsolt]

As you can see #s 2 and 3 have a yellow cast to them compared to #1 which I assume is lit by daylight and looks more like the real scene. This can be easily corrected by a custom white balance or if they are the only lights a balance for incandescent might work.

You will need to work on placement, ratios, etc., but it's not a bad start for $30.

Good luck,
Jim

[Vetteography]

As you can see #s 2 and 3 have a yellow cast to them compared to #1 which I assume is lit by daylight and looks more like the real scene. This can be easily corrected by a custom white balance or if they are the only lights a balance for incandescent might work.

You will need to work on placement, ratios, etc., but it's not a bad start for $30.

Good luck,
Jim

Thanks for the tip, I wasn't even looking at that and completly missed the color shift.

Thankfully, it is a relatively easy fix.

Here is a 1/2 corrected version on the original natural light picture.

http://www.bastaards.org/Misc/Pictures/Bear_CorrectedColor.jpg

Better?

[Marshall]

It is necessary to do the custom white balance as the colour temperature of these lights alters with age ( the lights that is not yours ! )