If you’ve been reading my posts for very long, you might recall that I’ve been tinkering around with a setup for doing macro and closeup photography at home. I started out by buying a 20″ light tent, but found that the lights it came with were pretty anemic. So I augmented the tent with another purchase on eBay — a couple of light stands with “daylight” compact fluorescent bulbs.
But I thought the light output from these was lacking, too. I’d really rather not have to put my camera on a tripod and use long exposures for this photography. Hand-held would be a much more flexible way to work.
So I finally broke down and bought the brightest “daylight” compact fluorescent lights that I could find — 85 watts each. I discovered a couple of things in this process:
1) They’re not cheap, about $25 each (shipped, when purchased 4 at a time).
2) They’re friggin’ HUGE — about 4 inches in diameter, and 10 inches from tip to tail.
To put things in perspective, I took this shot comparing a 35 watt CFL bulb (that came with the light stands) to an 85 watt CFL bulb, with an old 60 watt incandescent for scale:
The 35 watt CFL supposedly puts out light equivalent to that from a 100 watt incandescent, while the 85 watt CFL is supposed to be equivalent to 300+ watts of incandescent light. Still, even with two 85 watt CFL bulbs shooting through white umbrellas, this rig is good enough for small work — but it’d never do for portraits.
Flashes are expensive, and a bit fidgety — continuous / “hot” lighting from bulbs is a lot easier for an amateur to get adjusted correctly. Still, I can see why the pros go with flash. It’s the only way to get the bright light they need in the right places.
As for me, now I’m thinking about upgrading yet again to silver umbrellas…
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