What type of lighting works best for photos? Flourscent? Yellow bulb? Soft white bulbs? I have flourescent in my basement, but when I took pictures they came out crappy. maybe I needed the light to be ditributed better, because the flourescent light is closer to one end then the other. Do you think the uniformity of the light is more important then the type of light?
I ask this question because my pictures are focused well, but they don’t come out like most other p[eoples. I feel like my landscaoping is getting shortchanged by my photos.
I use track lighting with the min-halogen spots, the GA10 bulbs. They often do a very good job if enough of them bring light to bear on the scene being imaged. Intensity is nearly as important as colour temperature, particularly for the digital cameras. I also sometimes place a natural light “feel good” flourescent near the scene in order to get the right colour temperature.
Don’t know about your camera, mine has a menu to select some parameters, one is white balance, with it I can select what lighting is being used. I too have fourescent , so I select it and I shoot with no flash, they come out reasonable.
One thing is that if you are taking photos under florescent lights, your camera must be set for it or be set to an automatic light setting (if so equipped). I also have the white balance set to automatic. Florescent lights of all types flicker at a frequency that your eyes can’t see, but the camera can. The amount of light is also important. If you can’t see all the detail on the layout due to low light, how do you expect the camera to be able to. I use four 27 watt spiral daylight bulbs to light my layout. These are equivalent to four 100 watt incandescent bulbs. The photos I take on my layout are taken with no extra light provided.
Depending on your camera, you should have different lighting source settings. One of which (hopefully) should be designed to work under florescent bulbs. Mine has three different florescent settings that make a dramatic difference in how colors come out. I’d experiment with those settings first to see if this resolves most of your color issues.
Thanx all. I have limited experience with cameras, but I will check to see if the digital camera I am using has those settings. It is a pretty nice camera so it will probably have some of the advanced settings. Hopefully the ones I need.
I read somewhere that John Allen only used his exisiting layout lighting when he photographed his Gorre and Daphieted.
I would suggest two things. 1) use the smallest f-stop you have and 2) turn off the auto focus. Of course this will mean you have to use a longer exposure and that will mean a tripod.
It really pays off to really read the manual that came with your camera and learn what it can do. I’m one of those people who don’t read instructions first … instructions are only for when you can’t get it to work on your own !!! [;)]
My pictures improved dramatically once I learned its capabilities !!! My train room is lit with the large style out-door Christmas lights, so the lighting is rather subdued ( I like it that way ), so taking pictures meant either dragging in some auxiliary lighting every time I wanted to take a picture, or I needed to learn my camera better.
I found I could never get a decent picture using a flash, so that was out. That meant I needed the camera to see the available light longer, and that meant I needed to go to manual mode. After a couple dozen shots experimenting, I found I was able to get some pretty decent shots in manual mode shooting the scene at around six seconds with no flash. For this type of exposure, the camera needs to be absolutely still ( a tri-pod or similar device is a must ) and use the self-timer - a shot that long will be affected just by the slightest movement of pressing the button !!!
Enough of the explanation, here’s the results ( no after shot editing required ) …
and download Picasa 2, it’s totally free and it’s a great image organizer and editor. I suspect you’re not editing your pictures for exposure and color balance, and this one does it easily. And did I say it’s FREE! Take your time and check out the features of it, load one of your pictures in it and try the “I feel lucky” button, I was amazed at how well it did. I’ve been using Photoshop for about 7 years now, but if I didn’t have that program I’d use Picasa 2 all the time. Now when you first download and open Picasa it will look through your pictures for a minute or two and get them into it’s ‘memory’ so let it go ahead and do that. Once it does it, it won’t have to do it again except when you add a new photo. Anyway, try the editing features, you can correct for off color and you can also sharpen images. Play around with it, you’ll love it.
By all means get the software for editing. I use one called Photofitre all the time. However, if you can get a great photo every now and then with ANY editing, it is very beneficial and satisfying. What’s more, with that goal in mind, you will take better shots to begin with. Finally, publishers usually want photos unedited.
I only use the layout lighting for my photos. (track lights) The only thing you have to be careful of is shadows on the backdrop (especially your own!)
I have a pocket digital camera with good optics, but not much in the way of manual control. It also doesn’t have a tripod mount.
I like to use room light, which is a lot of ceiling lights spread around the room. They’re all incandescent - plain old bulbs. The coverage is pretty even across the layout, and I don’t get severe shadowing anywhere. I let the camera do the basic light balance. I almost never use a flash.
I still often end up taking pictures in the evening, when the room lights don’t get any help from the windows. In those shots, sometimes the pictures aren’t bright enough for my taste, so I digitally adjust the brightness, contrast and gamma values on the computer. Also, I’ve been putting interiors into buildings, with lights inside, so I frequently don’t use much room light in order to highlight the brighter interior of the buildings. In these cases, I again need to boost the brightness digitally.
Since I can’t use a tripod, I usually brace the camera against something and use the “delay” timer on the camera. The timer allows me to trigger the shutter without physically pushing the button, which means I don’t jiggle the camera and the shots come out better.
A lot of these and other suggestions are in my model railroad photography website, see in my signature.
As for fluorescent lights, there are so many different types, and they all produce different effects in photos. I have daylight type bulbs in my hobby room and workshop. They cost a bit more, but I like the coloration better.
I often use my desktop magnifier lamp with a circular fluorescent bulb, and the photos come out just right without any manipulation.
As a former Certified Photographic Councilor I think it would also be an advantage for people to read a book on photographic lighting. A good camera shop should have a book of this type.
The standard lighting set up is for a main light at one side, a weaker light on the other side, and a background light to eleminate shadows. There are various ways to do this and it will usually give you good pictures on a variety of subjects.
These are not hard and fast rules as there are none in art and photography is an art.
if you are using regular film you will need to balance the film and light types. Films balanced to different types of lighting are available or you can use color balance filters to accomplish this but it will effectivly cost you speed.
This is a very quick synopsis of lighting but can be considered as a base for expeimentation.
I light my layout with Phillips Natural Light incandescents, and do the majority of my photographic work with the regular layout lighting. Occasionally, if I’m looking for a special effect I’ll use different colored bulbs or use auxiliary lighting. Don’t over look the usefulness of a piece of reflective white cardboard to soften shadows and bounce more light into the scene.
How did you make these structures. They are very nice l;ooking. What type of material did you use? Did you have plans or did you copy real buildings? This is where I am struggling. I need to figure out how to make my own structures, because U cannot afford kits. Also, I get more satisfaction from building my own styuff from scratch.
My quick reply is that my stuctures are imagined. No plans, and I suppose I take in what I see and remember it, sort of. They are cardboard and tubes, leftovers from kits and the like. I have three tutorials floating around here and I like to resurrect them from time to time. I’ll post the links here around lunchtime.
