My priority in taking photos of my trains is the interiors. The biggest problem was color balance. My colors came out great when everything was dark except for the lighted interiors - not a very appealing scene, though. I soon found out that the exterior flood lighting of the fore and back ground had to be the same as the interior lighting: LED. I bought several types of home and auto white LED light bulbs. Problem solved, right? NOT! I bought 2 identical screw in white LED light bulbs of the same number, same manufacturer (China), and same source. I filtered them with the same masking tape I use in the car interiors. My digital camera went nuts with the white balance. The colors would change from shot to shot. [banghead] After much trial and error, I discovered that those 2 “indentical” bulbs were producing 2 different colors. One looked pretty white behind my filter, the other one was greenish behind the filter. It looked like each had the same LED array in them - physically, they looked the same. I also had a 12v auto LED bulb that looked pretty good behind my filter. So by using the one good screw in for back ground fill, and the 12v for fore ground, I started getting consistent, good colors in my shots. These LED light bulbs are not cheap. The thought of buying more in the hopes of getting a match doesn’t appeal to me, so most of my scenes will be dusk or moon light with, maybe, a street light in the fore. Oh, BTW, when they say “…equivalent to a 40-50 watt incandescent…” they must actually mean 15-20 watts. [censored]
I have to laugh when they talk about wattage of LED or the new fluorescent “green” lights. They always appear to about half the brightness of what’s advertised. The light doesn’t seem to radiate out as far as an incandescent bulb either.
Here is a link to 5500K Color Corrected Daylight CFL bulbs I just saw yesterday… haven’t tried them, but might be a good option.
http://www.handhelditems.com/5500k-color-corrected-light-fluorescent-lamp-photo-bulb-p-5711.html
Thanks for the tip. I ordered a couple and will try them on my next photo session.
DC
DC–
I’m anxious to see how they do; I am considering them for my layout expansion (waiting on electrical work before getting underway on that). Hope you will keep us posted.
Got the CFL bulbs you mentioned. I avoid looking directly at them; they are pretty intense.
The first pic was with 1 bulb, bounced off the ceiling, overhead. There were no global adjustments (intensity, balance, etc.) done to the original images used in assembling this picture. No other lighting on the scene.
Both bulbs I got seemed to yield the same color balance. Unfortunately, they do not match my passenger car interior LED lighting when I get in tight for that. It’s close, but I get a slight blue-ish color in the interior. Can’t adjust the global color balance cause then the exterior gets to greenish. The site you linked listed the bulbs as 5000k.
This second pic yielded the same blue-ish imbalance in the orignal shot, but my LED room lamp was on at that time. I corrected the color balance slightly before cutting in the background image.
I like the bulbs for the money, and will use them for exterior photos and at my workbench.
Thanks again for the tip.
DC
Thanks for the photos and information. Your results are pretty consistent with some older (circa '80’s) daylight photo incandescant bulbs I’ve used for copystand photography–they were expensive and high wattage too.