Lighting advice for a beginner.

scottypaterson

scottypaterson

New member
Hello!

New guy on the block and keen learner

What i am trying to learn is stock photography and a little food photography
and recently bought myself a camera.

So i made myself a light tent from canvas panels,the picture should be below it is
20 x 16 x 16 inches

vBx74ZzKUB


And i used it outside on a nice day and one of my better pictures out of many below.
When i took it into Photoshop, the paint bucket tool changed white background into any
color in one press.Is that a good sign that lighting was even? i have had some that looked underexposed but i am still learning my way through settings and hopefully come together in time.


tZfM47VDB0



I would like to use it in the house and i guess i need to know what sort of lights i need to buy?
I have tried to research but my head is spinning with confusion, and trying to look online even more so so many out there.

Also advice for any other items i could get or need ? so far just my camera lens at 18mm - 55mm and my home made crafted light tent.

Thanks in advance for any replies Scott
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
Welcome to the forum

If you fill out your profile we can better answer any questions that you might have.
You can do that at http://nikonites.com/profile.php?do=editprofile

Some useful links
Nikon Product Manuals available for download
Nikon | Imaging Products | Digitutor


Guidelines to adding a photo to your post.

1. Resize photo to 1000px on the long side.
2. Resolution set to 72px

These guidelines will be good for viewing on a computer but will not be good for printing. This will help safeguard your copyright.







​
 
R

riverside

Senior Member
Welcome to the site.

If you're going to do small product photography with any repetition I strongly suggest considering continuous or strobe lighting around a table with a backdrop where you can quickly change the base/background material. They do get dirty and much faster than you can imagine. I found tents to be a major pain regarding access and lighting.

As has been noted, read, read, read and look at the multitude of YouTube tutorials.
 
scottypaterson

scottypaterson

New member
BLgbK69CUAAfoGW.jpg



BLgazKYCIAAJB7b.jpg

​Sorry here is the photos the top one is the tent i made up using canvas panels
the second s a shot i did outside.
 
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W

WayneF

Senior Member
Posting here (on any computer monitor), it could not matter less what the image dpi value is. 72 dpi or 7200 dpi, it simply has no effect on the monitor, it is totally don't care. dpi is for printing on paper. Image size (dimension in pixels) is all important. in video.

The purpose of a light tent is to hide reflections in shiny things, usually glass. Reflections of the room, of the lights, even of you and the camera. We don't want to see that reflected in our shiny subjects. So the light tent presents an evenly lighted blank white panel everywhere, which is reflected, but which we don't notice. The tent is lighted fairly evenly to make this be true. For example, your second, the close up in the sun, is lighted from above (shadows underneath), and the top panel and sun is reflected, right above the eyes of your critter.

If reflections in shiny things is not a problem, then the light tent has no native advantage (not necessarily a general lighting plan). It is diffused, but we can use larger lights (umbrellas for example) alone to create soft diffused lights, often more versatile and easier than the tent. But these umbrellas may reflect in shiny subjects, etc.

Flash is very valuable in the studio, but flash has the downside that you "can't see it", that is, you have to evaluate the lighting in the test picture. But incandescent light, you can see and evaluate as you move it around to position it, but the exposure may have to be slow, like maybe one second sometimes. This works fine for inanimate subjects, and is good for light tents, but incandescent is fairly dim and does not work well for portraits of people, who move.

For a start, see light tent lighting - Google Search

Note that if you have a visible frame inside the tent, it can reflect in the subject too. It is good to have the frame outside the tent, or to cover it with the same fabric. Anything not the same white cloth can reflect "differently" and be noticed.
 
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