Are Home Depot worklights at all useful for photography/video

[Milo Mindbender]

Awhile back, I remember seeing an article about using Home Depot Halogen worklights for inexpensive photography and video lighting. The person who wrote it mentioned the bulbs could be replaced with ones that gave out a more natural color temperature and diffusers could even out the light.

Nice idea, but it's a really "hot" light to deal with.

I was in Home Depot today and saw this LED worklight http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-5-...tional-LED-Work-Light-3PL-TP-DF-24W/203455015

It's 2500 lumens with a color temperature of about 4000k for $100, a variety of smaller sizes were available. I'm wondering if anyone has tried using these for photography or video lights?

I know some LEDs generate light with a lot of "spikes" in the spectrum that aren't so good for photography. Anyone tried using these?

 

[Clueless Wanderer]

Awhile back, I remember seeing an article about using Home Depot Halogen worklights for inexpensive photography and video lighting. The person who wrote it mentioned the bulbs could be replaced with ones that gave out a more natural color temperature and diffusers could even out the light.

Nice idea, but it's a really "hot" light to deal with.

I was in Home Depot today and saw this LED worklight http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-5-...tional-LED-Work-Light-3PL-TP-DF-24W/203455015

It's 2500 lumens with a color temperature of about 4000k for $100, a variety of smaller sizes were available. I'm wondering if anyone has tried using these for photography or video lights?

I know some LEDs generate light with a lot of "spikes" in the spectrum that aren't so good for photography. Anyone tried using these?

Hey, I have no experience with any of the lights you mentioned, but when I bought a 'non photography' light based on the stated Kelvin, my colour spectrometer confirmed it indeed was the Kelvin they claimed but to the camera and the eye, the kelvin had been obtained with a mixture of what I can only describe as pink, violet and blue. The rest of the colours ( reds, greens, yellows ) were non existant. This showed me that the kelvin number is only part of the equation.

 

[DotCom Editor]

In the worklights I use the 5000 Kelvin daylight-balanced compact fluorescent bulbs and I also still set a custom white balance. I also diffuse the light they throw with a piece of Rosco Tuffspun taped to the light fixture. You can also gel them for color effects. They're great for macro work with your camera mounted on a tripod. I have more than a dozen and use them in my creative macro classes. Work like a charm. For portrait photography, they're not my choice. For that, I have my half-dozen Einsteins and softboxes.

 

[Sailor Blue]

Even the best fluorescent and LED lights designed for photography (and which are very expensive) don't provide full spectrum lighting so some colors won't be reproduced accurately.

Home Depot tungsten/halogen work lights will work for photography and video. The WB is closer to 3000K than 5600K of sunlight but that isn't a problem. Just use the camera's Tungsten WB setting or better set a Custom WB using a WB card.

The problem is that they are very hot, they produce hard light which isn't flattering for portraiture, and they are not very bright for portraiture. If you diffuse them you have to be careful to leave plenty of space between the diffuser and the light or you may set the diffuser material on fire. Because they really aren't very bright you will have to use higher ISO values and/or longer shutter speeds. Higher ISO values mean lower quality images while longer shutter speeds means camera shake and subject movement.

For the above reason hot-shoe flash units, and especially studio strobes with their modeling lights to show you the subject lighting, are the preferred lights for portraiture.

Sailorblue - PhotoCamel - Equipment Guide for Setting up a Small Home Portrait/Glamor Studio

 

[Klaus dk]

Sailorblue gives good advice, but studio strobes are not suitable for video, and if good, they are not cheap.

Since the OP specifically asked about LED work lights, one should perhaps mention that the CRI (Colour Rendition Index) of the cheap LED and CFL light sources are very low. High CRI sources are more expensive, and therefore they also advertise their quality.

 

[ormdig]

Hi Milo, I bought this particular light stand for my shop and have tried it out for some product photography. It lists at 4494K and using a Spyder Cube to check, it comes very close as there were other sources of light in the room. It's a very hard light that falls off quickly and, as Sailor mentioned, it isn't full spectrum. If complete color accuracy is important I wouldn't recommend it but it is very close. We had a charcoal jumper (clothing) that has a hint of blue in sunlight that didn't show any blue under the LED. There was a red that tended toward orange in sun light that was very slightly redder under the LED. Overall the colors were very close.

The problem really isn't the lights but the stand. It is cheap junk and I was going to take it back but my dog chewed on the cord so I still have it. I am going to use it again next week for more clothing. Since I can compare the raw images with the product in natural light it isn't hard for me to correct them if necessary. We used it for fill (home made diffuser) to relieve shadows when shooting in natural light and the 4500K was close enough not to cause problems.

I think for $100 you might be able to find something with a better stand,

 

[hirejn]

No.

 

[rockjano]

Well better than nothing

But for photography better to buy cheap asian studio strobes, they can be very cheap nowdays quality is not the best but if you are not a professional it is just OK.

Video is trickier. It might be good for that but very yelowish and hot.

For video fluorescent is the cheapest solution there are heads that can accomodate 4-5 E27 bulbs.

If you put 4-5 115W big fluo bulb it makes some nice amount of light.

rockjano

Awhile back, I remember seeing an article about using Home Depot Halogen worklights for inexpensive photography and video lighting. The person who wrote it mentioned the bulbs could be replaced with ones that gave out a more natural color temperature and diffusers could even out the light.

Nice idea, but it's a really "hot" light to deal with.

I was in Home Depot today and saw this LED worklight http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-5-...tional-LED-Work-Light-3PL-TP-DF-24W/203455015

It's 2500 lumens with a color temperature of about 4000k for $100, a variety of smaller sizes were available. I'm wondering if anyone has tried using these for photography or video lights?

I know some LEDs generate light with a lot of "spikes" in the spectrum that aren't so good for photography. Anyone tried using these?

 

[JohnnyRoman]

I just saw these as well. did you try them out?

 

[ben855]

I am trying in vain to take some interior shots of paintings in situ. I need flat no shadows lighting. Don't want to pay the earth,any recommendations?

 

[Timothy S Broadley]

You might want to take a look at this

https://myad200.com/collections/accessories/products/killer-video-light-300ii

I went to a workshop with Scott Robert Lim and he demonstrated this light and it looked pretty good. It also matched pretty well with the Godox speedlights he was using. He does some nice work.

Tim