Studio lighting for flower photography ( Help required please )

cmoffat

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13 Nov 2005 - 9:56 AM

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Hi everyone,

I normally take photographs of wildlife but unfortunately seem to have less & less time to follow my true passion. This being the case I thought that I would try photographing flowers in doors atleast during the winter months. Having a full time job can be a major downer sometimes :-(

I have currently tried taking photo's of cut flowers in doors both with & without in door lighting switched on & both with & without the add of my built in D70 flash. To date I have found that either no flash with no in door lighting or no flash with in door lighting works the best. Flash just creates to many shadows. I currently use 20+ second shutter speed with f32 aperture & no flash, however the overall colours in the photograph taken do not seem as true to life & perfect as I would like. I use a white background card & for example appears in my photograph as a slightly off white.

Should I take the added expence to buy studio lighting, if so what would you recommend on a tight budget. Or should I just tinker in photoshop cs2 until I get the result I'm looking for. I have to say that personally I do like to get the shot as near as possible straight out of the camera & try to avoid to much tinkering in photoshop.

All advice & tips greatfully appreciated.

Cheers!

Clinton.

Andy_Britten (Junior Member)

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13 Nov 2005 - 10:20 AM

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Hi, good question, one I can't answer directly because I wish to know also. However I did post a question on getting backgrounds right, predominately black, though the advice I got applies to white as well. Why not check it out in forum title is:-
Back grounds - really basic
Good luck finding out the rest, I will look in with interest.
Andrew

cmoffat

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13 Nov 2005 - 10:33 AM

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Hi everyone,

Thanks for your replies!

Reflectors sound interesting. One thing though would be lack of daylight to use as my light source. One reason for me trying out flower photography instead of my true passion of wildlife photography is lack of time. That being said most work done with flowers would take place in the evenings after work when it's dark. More so than at the weekends anyway, have lack of time there also :-(

At night I just use the 60w light source in the room. Was wondering whether that is enough. The reflectors would improve that light source, so that was definately a good idea. Would I not benefit from additional light sources one each side of the subject, table lamps or something or would the reflectorss do the same thing.

Cheers,

Clinton.

akh (e2 Member)

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13 Nov 2005 - 11:47 AM

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I, along with several other member use this little item from Maplins. It comes with a reversible BG which is grey/blue but it is easy to make other backdrops to replace this one. I've seen one of these with two lights and a camera stand on ebay for around 60, but a tripod and a couple of small halogen desk lights would work just as well or you could use it with natural light.
Tony

ejtumman (e2 Member)

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13 Nov 2005 - 12:53 PM

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I've just bought an INT103 Cool-Light from Interfit. I'll be trying it out with flowers this week, but the wine and grapes shots in my pf were lit with it. It's brilliant because it's daylight balanced.

The maplin box with halogen lights works really well, but if you have daylight in the room as well, you'll end up with a blue cast on the flowers and stems. To correct this, I use a fliter to cover the lights, so everything in the room is daylight.

Have fun
Emma