Advice on inexpensive lighting for taking adult photo at home please

[fishburger]

Hello, there is an area in my apartment that could be used for photo shoot. As it is in the middle of the apartment, there is no lighting. Even I turned on nearby lights, that area is still dark. The wall is white and I want to take photo of adult standing making various poses. Besides those expensive lights sold in photography stores, what suggestions do you have? Can I use those inexpensive light stand (about $30-50) from Home Depot or Walmart? What kind of light bulb do you recommend? How about LED white light? At what lumens should I get?

 

[photo1x1.com]

Hey there, welcome to the forums.
First of all I would stay away from LED lights that are not made for photography, if you want to create color images. For black&white they are fine, but they have a strong color cast that is sometimes impossible to get rid of .
Second: any light other than flashlight is rather dark, so if you want to photograph with continuous light, you will need quite a lot of it.
What budget do you have for all the lighting equipment together? Keep in mind that sometimes it is better to save a bit of money and buy some decent equipment. I know what I´m talking about. I very often made some DIY gear that wasn´t all that cheap, but ended up buying the real thing sooner or later. With lights it is more about the light shapers like softboxes, reflectors, etc.. Those are more difficult and sometimes even impossible to create for big and especially hot lights.
Just to be clear: with adult, do you mean nude?

 

[Designer]

Besides those expensive lights sold in photography stores,

They are not all expensive. You can find flashguns for as little as #26.99.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=photo&field-keywords=flash

 

[fishburger]

Thanks.

Budget: Ideally less than US$100 but if not possible and cannot get a decent result, no more than $200?

No nude. I mentioned adult to give forum members an idea of the size of the objects.

 

[weepete]

Yonguno flashes are pretty decent for the price

 

[fishburger]

Yonguno flashes are pretty decent for the price

Which model do you recommend?

I forgot to mention that I use an iPhone 6s+ (with Wide lens from Moment) to take the photos and videos. The flashes may not be compatible.

 

[Designer]

I forgot to mention that I use an iPhone 6s+ (with Wide lens from Moment) to take the photos and videos. The flashes may not be compatible.

You can make it work. Make sure whichever flashguns you purchase will have a "slave" function. Set them up on stands, and when you fire your iPhone flash, the flash(es) on stands will fire as well. Easy to do.

 

[photo1x1.com]

I forgot to mention that I use an iPhone 6s+ (with Wide lens from Moment) to take the photos and videos. The flashes may not be compatible.

You can make it work. Make sure whichever flashguns you purchase will have a "slave" function. Set them up on stands, and when you fire your iPhone flash, the flash(es) on stands will fire as well. Easy to do.

I don´t know about the iPhone6s+, but I just went and tried it with the iPhone4. Most of the time my flash didn´t fire at all and two times they didn´t fire at the right time and so the image was dark. I tried Nissin i40, Elinchrom BX500 and Elinchrom ELB400. All of them worked fine with other flash (e.g. fire one another).
I would definitely do some reading before I purchase any of the flahes for use with an iphone.

 

[fishburger]

I forgot to mention that I use an iPhone 6s+ (with Wide lens from Moment) to take the photos and videos. The flashes may not be compatible.

You can make it work. Make sure whichever flashguns you purchase will have a "slave" function. Set them up on stands, and when you fire your iPhone flash, the flash(es) on stands will fire as well. Easy to do.

By "it", which product and model do you mean? How many do I need? Does the flash on the phone activate the flash(es) on the stands?

 

[KmH]

Just a hot shoe flash unit without a good size light modifier, like a 45" convertible umbrella, will cause sharp edged shadows which are not very flattering for most kinds of people photos.

Impact Convertible Umbrella - White Satin with Removable Black Backing - 45"
Impact Umbrella Bracket
Impact Light Stand, Black - 6' (1.8m)

Two lights often works better than just 1 light:
Impact Digital Flash Umbrella Mount Kit

 

[chuasam]

for adult photos, you want softer lighting.
Grain is fine.
you get this atmospheric voyeurish view...kinda like Helmut Newton and his protege Ellen von Unwerth.

 

[fishburger]

Is it a good idea to use the following products to make the room bright?

All-Pro 2500 Lumen LED Portable Work Light-WL2540LP - The Home Depot

Cooper Lighting Lighting AL3050LPCGY All-Pro LED 3100 Lumen Area Light | ATG Stores

 

[TrolleySwag]

You might be able to use those. I would bounce those lights off of the walls. Here's a pic of me bouncing 2 Yonguo 560s off of a wall

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[fishburger]

Haven't been to a photography shop yet but I was in a hardware store. I got a Husky worklight with tripod. It has two LED each of which is 7000 lumen with 5000K white color. When I turned them on, the shooting area was brightened but there are strong shadows on the wall. Is that the reason "bouncing light off the wall"? What is the best way to do so? Facing the LED away from the object and using white umbrella?

Is it better to go to a photography store to buy those mentioned by you guys than to use the Husky worklight?

 

[Derrel]

Yes, "work type lights" are very bright, very powerful, but they do cast rather strong, hard-edged shadows. Indoors, a common way to make the light softer is to "bounce" that light off the ceiling, or off of a wall, or off of a corner where the wall and ceiling meet, or off of a white door. try to keep direct light from the light units from directly striking people, or there will likely be hard shadows.

By bouncing the light off of a ceiling or wall, it hugely INCREASES the size of the light source! Look at the beautiful light quality that TrolleySwag achieve by bouncing two flash units off of the indoor walls!