What BULB do you guys use for taking pictures of automotive DIYs?

That's a GREAT idea!

The problem with photographing automotive repairs is that the shadows are horrid. I must try that.

Thanks for all the sturdy bulb ideas; I'll keep reading!

Reply to
Brent
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I use plain ol' table lamp incandescents (150W), the kind you get at any supermkt or h/w store. They were all I could afford. Never once broke or burnt one out. Still have 'em. I don't recall which brand, but look like this GE:

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I also never took pictures as big as a car. All my ebay items were no bigger than a shoe box so my photo stage and light placement was typically an area no greater than 3 ft apart for the side lights.

nb

Reply to
notbob
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.home.repair.]

Wow! What a great idea. Is 4 secs long enough to get that light moved to all the places needed. What's the max exposure time?

Thanks for the great tip.

nb

Reply to
notbob

:Enjoy them while you can, before the envirokooks ban :incandescents. They are already banned in Europe. Production has ceased and what we have are leftovers. I watched a conversation between an old lady who asked for an

100 W bulb and was told they were phased out and she could only get CFLs or a plain 75W.
Reply to
Tzortzakakis Dimitris

:Try some outdoor floods. Mioght be a bit hardier. Plus :a flood may :work without quiote so high a wattage. I've seen some very high wattage CFLs used by some of my clients, they are almost 1' long and, like, 85 W. I don't know if you can get them in the USA. They are not very expensive, I think like 40 euros, but if you break one that's money down the drain. There are also excellent CFL spotlights, too (at least on this side of the pond).

Reply to
Tzortzakakis Dimitris

The big powerful CFLs you mention are possibly those made by Megaman. In the domestic medium size ES fitting they only go up to

60W, a tungsten light equivalent output of 300W with a better colour temperature. In GES fitting they go much larger, although all but the smallest 80W need separate ballast units included in the power supply. But they take a while to warm up and produce full power output.

Mains powered tungsten halogens, if you can still find them in domestic ES fittings, are robust, long lasting, more powerful light output per watt than ordinary tungsten, a higher colour temperature, and possibly the nicest flattest colour power spectrum of any electric source except xenon.

Reply to
Chris Malcolm

Why not use a remote flashgun or two? Much more portable, much more light, only downside is you'd have to do a bit of learning if you haven't used that kind of thing before. It can also be cheap if you buy cheap Hong Kong radio flash triggers and second hand film-era flashguns, but you have to use those in fully manual flash and camera modes which involves some more learning.

Reply to
Chris Malcolm

I used 4 secs because that was the slowest shutter speed on my camera. I got to be pretty quick with the lights. Another advantage of a timed exposure is that you can stop down the lens to get more depth of field. My best advice is to experiment and determine your own times. You can use a neutral density or a polarizing filter to let you use longer shutter speeds if you find you can't do enought light painting in 4 secs.

You'll be amazed at how it eliminates the shadows that plague normal engine compartment photography. I switched to the 100 LED flashlights because they allowed me to illuminate areas of interest slightly more than the rest of the photo. It's like "in-camera" dodging and burning without the enlarger or darkroom!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Rough service incandescents produce light in less quantity and of a yellower color than standard incandescents do. One reason is that the filament has a different shape that conducts more heat to the bulb's fill gas. Another is that rough service lamps are generally designed for longer life expectancy.

You may need to use more lamps or ones of wattage higher than 200 watts.

On the other hand, there are 250W 3200K "photoflood" lamps. They are known as PH/250A23 or as ECA. They have a multisupported C9 filament like rough service lamps have. They produce 6,300 lumens, same as a "standard"

300 watt 120V 750 hour incandescent with the usual CC-6 coiled-coil filament. Their main drawback is a short life expectancy of 30 hours.

Then again, the 300 watt incandescents may be good. Their CC-6 filaments usually have filament supports, while I seem to think that 200W incandescents with CC-6 filaments lack filament supports.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

The usual 200W incandescents and most 150 watt ones rated 750 hours will not be affected by the upcoming USA incandescent ban that is scheduled to take effect in stages from 2012 to 2014. This ban has a lot of exceptions:

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- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Reply to
Don Klipstein

Check the Flashpoint Cool Light 4 system.

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This is without a stand.

If you need a stand Adorama has both; <

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Using this lighting you will probably have to make some white balance adjustments if you are shooting jpeg only. Shooting RAW will give you greater flexibility with WB.

Reply to
Savageduck

YES ... WW

Reply to
WW

If "color balance" isn't high on your priority list, you might want to consider using compact flouescent bulbs. Use the type that has a plactic (not glass) glove over the flouescent tube. You can also use CF with a built in reflector.

This are pretty expensive compared to incadescent lamps but will last a LONG time, don't break easily, and don't generate much heat. You don't have to worry about burning yourself either.

You can get SUPER CFs that put out a fair amount of light. Again, some of these have a plastic shell on the outside.

Reply to
John Gilmer

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Brent saying something like:

You can get cheap (

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

Only when properly cooked. Raw bulbs only useful for b/w pics.

Reply to
Sjouke Burry

As long as your camera allows, really as long as you get the exposure right. You need to experiment a bit to get the shutter speed, aperture and lighting right.

Here's one of my cat with a 10 second exposure:

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This was done with a pretty poor handheld torch. I think you'd get much better results with a better light source. And cats aren't really the best subjects for "light painting" because they move...

Cheers,

Ollie

Reply to
Ollie Clark

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