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DIY Studio Lighting - The Strip Light That Won't Strip You

Mon, 2007-11-26 00:15 — udijw

Photographer David Greene was kind enough to share a cool lighting technique he uses for fashion photography. Using your everyday florescence fixtures and bulbs David creates two strip lights. Watch the flick.


There strip lights are good enough to go with f/3.5 on100 ISO which is nice, and you don't need to use florescence filters, cuz the bulbs (can you call florescence bulbs?) are daylight balanced.

You get nice balanced softish light from both sides of the model making this technique a cheap and easy way to get a shot at glamour shots.

One word of advice, though - if you already use florescence lighting in your house, your family will not appreciate sitting in the dark because you took their light to shoot a cool looking model. Beware.

Took a shot? show off on the DIYPhotography flickr group.

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Related Links:
- Florescence fixture (29.97$)
- Florescence bulbs - daylight balanced
- Philips Florescence data


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Comments

Mon, 2007-11-26 16:36 — Larry Eiss (not verified)

Strip lights

The video was great, thanks. It would be helpful to see a couple of hi-res shots taken during that shoot though. I saw falloff near the bottom of the area and looking at the actual results would help me to see whether and how that effects the output.
Thanks for taking the time to do this David!

Mon, 2007-11-26 20:03 — Jeff Z. (not verified)

Cheaper fixtures

Is it necessary to get the $29.97 fixtures? I saw this video somewhere else, and some people recommended buying the $8.97 fixtures from Walmart. I picked up those, and the most similar bulbs Lowes has (I didn't feel like driving 40 miles to Home Depot), and they seem to do the trick. Of course, like the previous comment mentioned, it would be nice to see some hi-res shots...then I could compare the differences.

Tue, 2007-11-27 07:07 — Anonymous (not verified)

Fixtures are fixtures, the

Fixtures are fixtures, the only thing that should make the difference is the light bulbs. I will also be going with the cheaper ones.
One fixture that I am thinking of trying out though has the curved "bulb gaurd" on the sides. It is for keeping the bulbs free from danger, as well as direct light downward (if hung from above like normal). I wonder how much this would help in using it as a photo light. Maybe spray paint it shiny chrome or something to really reflect it. I will try and do this and let you all know.

Sun, 2007-12-02 00:30 — Dant (not verified)

Bulbs

I did some research on Fluorescent bulbs. There are 2 specs to be aware of:

color as discussed in the video. you want daylight balanced around 5000 to 5500.

The other is CRI or "Color Rendering Index" This the the color accuracy. CRI is measured on a scale of 1 to 100. You should look for bulbs with a minimum of 80 but the closer to 100 the better (and more expensive usually).

Tue, 2007-12-04 07:13 — Ed (not verified)

Thanks david for sharing

Thanks david for sharing this technique.

Any idea where I can order this equipment online.

Thanks

Tue, 2007-12-04 16:47 — J.R. of SilverPhotography (not verified)

My idea...

Missed it last year.. try again this year... the walmart sporting goods guy told me that the last hard shell rifle cases clearanced at $8 last year after xmas. depending on size, 4-8 tubes can be bolted into one of those cases. Plus to boot, they can be opened some where around 120 degrees and will free stand or open 180 degrees and with some handy work a leg added to keep them upright. This is my next lighting project!

Sat, 2007-12-22 04:56 — Anonymous (not verified)

The video link is dead, can

The video link is dead, can anyone fix it or point me to another link? Thank you

Sat, 2007-12-22 09:48 — udijw

Video loks ok - here is another link

Here is the original flick from youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eik8iWX97pc

- udi

Fri, 2008-04-18 10:00 — Anonymous (not verified)

Thank you so much for taking

Thank you so much for taking the time to film, edit and post that.

Thu, 2008-06-05 16:53 — Julian (not verified)

DIY Lighting

Hey cool find! I saw a similar article here:
http://shuttertalk.com/articles/diylighting

Fri, 2008-06-06 23:25 — retarded? (not verified)

uhm, 3.5 at iso 100, but what shutter???

Following this article I purchased some 4' ballasts and the Phillips 32watt Daylight Plus bulbs (total of 4). These are T8 bulbs, not T12 which I don't think David specified. But from the looks of the video he is using T8 which are skinnier but come in the same available wattage.

I set this up in the exact same fashion as David...and I am getting 3.5 at ISO 100, but I am getting shutter speeds of 1/5 to 1/8 with a 17-55 L 2.8 on a 40d, evaluative metering.

Even at 35mm, kind of a slow shutter speed if I want the sharpest shot? Certainly doesn't seem fast enough to freeze a model posing...I'm getting camera shake blur at the same David distance from a still subject going hand held.

Am I missing something here?

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