Photon Soup

Well I got the lights done. I bolted three fixtures (from walmart $11.00 each) to a piece of 16″x 30″ masonite. I just hang this on the top stud if a lightstand. There are two of these units for the main front lights. Just hang a single fixture on a stand for the hair/rim lights. When I put them altogether I realized that I was one fixture short, so I’ve got to pick up another one next time I’m in Missoula. I also realized that not all the fluorescent tubes I have are the same Two of them are much more blue in color causing a weird cast on the skin tones. A grabbed a random girl (Kelly) and took a few shots.

The “Before” shots are JPGs straight from the camera. The “After” shots have been automatically processed by Portrait Professional free trial version. Since I haven’t bought their software it says “TRIAL” on it just to let you know how cheap I am.

Click on the picture for a larger view

I really like digital for light painting. The instant feedback sure makes it easy to zero in on the desired look. I recently bought a huge rechargable spotlight. It has a 12 volt battery and a 65 watt halogen bulb in it and puts out tons of light. It will make a great “brush” for light painting. Now it just needs to warm up a little so that I won’t freeze to death out taking pictures at night!

Here’s an example of some of my lightpainting:

Ponderosa pines at night

Used a 4 cell maglight, 15 second exposure, Nikon 18-200mm VR zoom at 18mm and f3.5, Nikon D300

Thats right, I use the biggest filter in the world! I get fabulous results when the filter is functioning properly.

What is the worlds largest filter? How can you get one? The worlds largest filter actually surrounds the world. It’s the atmosphere, and all the dust, debris, water vapor, and contaminants in it.

We are all familiar with the term “Golden Hour”, for the hour after sunrise and before sunset, when the suns rays travel through the greatest amount of atmosphere. This make the light softer and filters out some of the blue photons, making things warmer.

Here in western Montana we are usually blessed(?) every summer with a few wild fires. The smoke from these fires fills the entire sky and filters the light in different ways. The density and type of smoke is constantly changing depending on a myriad  of conditions. So when everybody else is complaining about the fires and the smoke I’m out taking pictures!

Heres a couple of picture taken on the trail to Capitain Lake above Lake Como. They were taken with my Kodak point and shoot! check out that awesome light!

Last year I had some nice dahlias, I just couldn’t get the photos to turn out how I wanted. Then one smokey afternoon I got these. Notice the soft shadows, warm colors, and overall brightness.

Just for a comparison heres some taken under normal sunlight.

Above taken on an overcast day, to cool. Below a sunny day, lose subtle colors.

The flower pictures were taken with a Nikon D300 and a 55mm micro AI lens

I love LED lights! Almost all of my flashlights are LED. All of my headlamps are LED. Most of my Christmas lights are LED. So naturally when I saw that Costco had some 110v LED lights I had to try them. I wondered how well they would work for a constant light source in a studio. So tonight I tested one, got some data and calculated if they would work out for photography.

LED light in reflector and white paper at 4 feet

Here’s the setup: One LED light, 7.5 watts, 450 lumens output, in an aluminum reflector (chick brooder). An easel with a piece of white poster paper. Nikon d300 with 50mm 1.8 AF lens. I manually set the white balance to 3030K.

I set the easel up at 2′, 4′, and 8, from the front of the bulb. I then determined proper exposure by setting the camera aperture to 2.0 and letting the camera pick the f-stop, I also manipulated the ISO until I could get a baseline. Since I was shooting a totally white piece of paper I knew I would have to add 2 more stops of light for a proper exposure. After a few test shots I choose to set the ISO to 1600, shutter at 1/125 sec and got the following f-stops:  2.0@8′, 4.0@4′, and 8@2′. I then put a colored test chart up and shot it at 1/30 second to confirm my results.

Test Chart: 8' from one 450 lumens LED light, ISO 1600, f2.0, 1/30 sec.

In order to be useful to me in a studio with moving kids and/or pets I want to be able, at a minimum, to shoot at 8 feet from lights, f8, 1/125 sec, and ISO 400. So I would need four more stops of light to get my f-stop, two stops to get my shutter speed, and two more stops to get my ISO. So if my math skills are correct I would need eight more stops of light than one LED produces. Since each stop doubles the amount of light, I would only need 256 of these fine lights to replace one of my strobes. If you have more experience in guessing these things, please chime in.

So yes, the LED’s would work for photography, If you had a lot of money and a lot of room. If you just wanted enough to do head shots, I think eight of them would be adequate. Thats a much more reasonable number to work with. I was thinking of putting a nine light unit together to see how it would work, but since it would probably have very limited usefulness, I don’t think that I will. If you put one together I would really like to know how it works out for you.

I know that there are no posts yet. Hey, I’m busy in the real world. I’ll get to you when I have time. in the meantime here’s a picture I took.