Light Bulb Recommendation ?

[Louno]

Hello, i'm fairly new to photography and find it a little overwhelming choosing the right light bulbs, i'd appreciate any recommendation for light bulbs I can buy online.

I am shooting food mostly.

My current setup consist of a large lamp with an umbrella diffuser, it uses a "Triphospor 105w 110v 5500k" CFL, there is no CRI / Lumen stated, it is pretty bright so I use this as my main light, but I personnally find it too cool ( very blueish the further you move away from it). Depending on my needs I will sometime also use a secondary smaller light, a "Blueplanet 23w 4100k" CFL which is stated to be CRI>80 / 1600 lumens, I personally find the color temperature of this light bulb to be much nicer.

For my secondary light I also bought a GE Reveal 23w, but I think the color temperature is a bit too warm, I use it to light my house instead.

Basically, I guess what i'm looking for is some full spectrum cfl with high lumen, high cri and a color temperature around 4000-5000 ? If possible, i'd like something that is affordable too

Thanks !

 

[KCook]

My CFLs have a CRI of 90. Even so, colors need quite a bit of fuss in processing. While CFLs are delightfully cheap, I'm on a slippery slope to giving up on them. Maybe this is the right time for you to consider flash or LEDs? If you are not running a high volume commercial studio, these do not need to be super expensive. Links to lots of ideas -

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[The Sage Knows]

Louno wrote:

Hello, i'm fairly new to photography and find it a little overwhelming choosing the right light bulbs, i'd appreciate any recommendation for light bulbs I can buy online.

I am shooting food mostly.

My current setup consist of a large lamp with an umbrella diffuser, it uses a "Triphospor 105w 110v 5500k" CFL, there is no CRI / Lumen stated, it is pretty bright so I use this as my main light, but I personnally find it too cool ( very blueish the further you move away from it). Depending on my needs I will sometime also use a secondary smaller light, a "Blueplanet 23w 4100k" CFL which is stated to be CRI>80 / 1600 lumens, I personally find the color temperature of this light bulb to be much nicer.

For my secondary light I also bought a GE Reveal 23w, but I think the color temperature is a bit too warm, I use it to light my house instead.

Basically, I guess what i'm looking for is some full spectrum cfl with high lumen, high cri and a color temperature around 4000-5000 ? If possible, i'd like something that is affordable too

Thanks !

I noticed you talked about the lighting being too blue or too warm. Did you know that with a custom white balance, you can achieve the same color temperature whether you lit the subject with incandescent, fluorescent, or daylight?

To do that you will need to have a neutral target to illuminate and use as the gauge to set custom WB in the camera or if you shoot RAW to set in post processing. One of the most neutral and convenient is the WhiBal

http://michaeltapesdesign.com/whibal.html

There may be issues with certain colors rendering differently due to different CRIs. Fluorescent light is not a continuous spectrum like daylight or incandescent. This means that the missing color in the spectrum of the light source will not be there to reflect back that specific color. Higher CRI means more continuous spectrum. TriPhosphor usually means higher than 82CRI.

For best results, try to keep the color temperatures of the various lights the same in the same image. If you light one side of the subject with 5500K and the other with 4100K there will be a noticeable color shift from one side to the other.

You can buy pretty much any kind of studio lighting you want from B&H. Here is a summary of the types that are available:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/photography/buying-guides/studio-lighting

--
Robert

 

[Louno]

The Sage Knows wrote:

I noticed you talked about the lighting being too blue or too warm. Did you know that with a custom white balance, you can achieve the same color temperature whether you lit the subject with incandescent, fluorescent, or daylight?

To do that you will need to have a neutral target to illuminate and use as the gauge to set custom WB in the camera or if you shoot RAW to set in post processing. One of the most neutral and convenient is the WhiBal

http://michaeltapesdesign.com/whibal.html

There may be issues with certain colors rendering differently due to different CRIs. Fluorescent light is not a continuous spectrum like daylight or incandescent. This means that the missing color in the spectrum of the light source will not be there to reflect back that specific color. Higher CRI means more continuous spectrum. TriPhosphor usually means higher than 82CRI.

For best results, try to keep the color temperatures of the various lights the same in the same image. If you light one side of the subject with 5500K and the other with 4100K there will be a noticeable color shift from one side to the other.

You can buy pretty much any kind of studio lighting you want from B&H. Here is a summary of the types that are available:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/photography/buying-guides/studio-lighting

 

[Sailor Blue]

Louno wrote:

The Sage Knows wrote:

I noticed you talked about the lighting being too blue or too warm. Did you know that with a custom white balance, you can achieve the same color temperature whether you lit the subject with incandescent, fluorescent, or daylight?

To do that you will need to have a neutral target to illuminate and use as the gauge to set custom WB in the camera or if you shoot RAW to set in post processing. One of the most neutral and convenient is the WhiBal

http://michaeltapesdesign.com/whibal.html

There may be issues with certain colors rendering differently due to different CRIs. Fluorescent light is not a continuous spectrum like daylight or incandescent. This means that the missing color in the spectrum of the light source will not be there to reflect back that specific color. Higher CRI means more continuous spectrum. TriPhosphor usually means higher than 82CRI.

For best results, try to keep the color temperatures of the various lights the same in the same image. If you light one side of the subject with 5500K and the other with 4100K there will be a noticeable color shift from one side to the other.

You can buy pretty much any kind of studio lighting you want from B&H. Here is a summary of the types that are available:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/photography/buying-guides/studio-lighting

--
Robert

Yes, I do use custom white balance every time. Also, when I use 2 lights, I place them right next to each other so that their light mix together, then I white balance the combined light.
I did some test with different lights and found that even though I set the white balance every time, some lights give nicer colors to the subject. I shoot in raw, so I know that a lot can be done to enhance the picture in post, but my goal is to edit the image as little as possible.

As Michael said, fluorescent bulbs are not full spectrum light sources so you can't expect colors to be faithfully reproduced. With some uses that isn't important but for for food and product photography color is critical.

My recommendation is that you switch to either incandescent lighting or to studio strobes. Either of these two light sources is full spectrum and with a proper WB you will get fairly accurate colors. To get really accurate colors you need to color correct your camera sensor and lens combinations. To do this you need a color checker like the X-Rite ColorChecker or the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport.

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport – X-Rite Photo – X-Rite Passport

With inanimate subjects like food or small products you can use long shutter speeds, which is why you don't need high powers and can get by with incandescent lighting.

If you want to use studio strobes then you can get by easily with less than 200Ws lights but they should have a minimum of 5 stops of power variability. Since you would be using smaller diffusers and relatively small subject to diffuser distances having too much power will be a bigger problem than not having enough, which is why using low powered studio strobes is fine and why you want a minimum of 5 stops of power adjustment.

My recommendation would be to look into getting a set of Paul C. Buff AlienBees B400s, which are 160Ws and have 6 stops of power adjustment. The only thing to be aware of is that the color temperature of ABs can vary slightly as you change the power settings but once you get the power set then they should remain as stable as most other brands.

Paul C. Buff - AlienBees B400

--
Living and loving it in Bangkok, Thailand. Canon 7D - See the gear list for the rest.

 

[Barrie Davis]

Louno wrote:

Hello, i'm fairly new to photography and find it a little overwhelming choosing the right light bulbs, i'd appreciate any recommendation for light bulbs I can buy online.

I am shooting food mostly.

My current setup consist of a large lamp with an umbrella diffuser, it uses a "Triphospor 105w 110v 5500k" CFL, there is no CRI / Lumen stated, it is pretty bright so I use this as my main light, but I personnally find it too cool ( very blueish the further you move away from it). Depending on my needs I will sometime also use a secondary smaller light, a "Blueplanet 23w 4100k" CFL which is stated to be CRI>80 / 1600 lumens, I personally find the color temperature of this light bulb to be much nicer.

For my secondary light I also bought a GE Reveal 23w, but I think the color temperature is a bit too warm, I use it to light my house instead.

Basically, I guess what i'm looking for is some full spectrum cfl with high lumen, high cri and a color temperature around 4000-5000 ? If possible, i'd like something that is affordable too

It doesn't matter what the Colour Temperature is as long as all lights are of the same type.

When lights are colour matched you then perform a custom white balance in camera, and you are set.... meaning it doesn't matter how they look to you, it is how they look to camera.

However, even the best fluorescent lights are not smooth-spectrum-ed. For food, use incandescent (tungsten) or better still, studio flash of about 160 joules per unit.... as recommended by Sailor Blue.

--
Regards,
Baz
:
"Ahh... But the thing is, these guys were no ORDINARY time travellers!"