Paper lightshades, what light bulb to use?

gayle23

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Hi, I've recently been watching some Brooke Shaden tutorials as I love her work! She recommends using ikea paper lampshades to diffuse the light with 200 watt bulbs for a cheap diy home studio. I thought I would give this a go as it's cheap and I am just learning and just planning on practising with friends etc. I've ordered some paper light shades but wandering what sort of light bulbs would be most flattering for portraits. should I be getting day light type bulbs? I really have no idea. I'm intending on just having a play about in my shed, it has no windows at all. Any advice?
Thanks Gayle
 
Gayle, it's not so much about the light bulb, than the tools you use for shaping the light, so any bulb would do.
However, some have more light output than others and are therefore easier to use for not so high ISO shots.
They usually get much hotter though which might make it more difficult to use light shaping tools.
In general hot bulbs (glow wire) have a more complete spectrum (similar to the sun) and are easier to white balance. Incadescent lights and LEDs can have weird color casts that are difficult to white balance.
Don't let manufacturers fool you. Some LED and Incadescence manufacturers give you equivalent wattage. They are ALL wrong. I own(ed) so many of them, and they are much less bright than their specs would suggest.
 
You want Edison base bulbs, or screw-in electronic flash units that use the Edison base.

Edison Screw Camera Flash Bulbs and Tubes | eBay

Electronic FLASH units that screw in have ben used for literally decades. In a windowless room, you will of course, need some light to see what's happening.
 
As an eBay Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
..............Don't let manufacturers fool you. Some LED and Incadescence manufacturers give you equivalent wattage. They are ALL wrong. .......

Actually, they're perfectly right.

What is ALL wrong is thinking wattage is a measurement of light output. It isn't. Wattage is a measurement of energy consumption. The meter that's on the side of your house is called a WattHour meter. Your toaster, hairdryer, electric clothes dryer, electric water heater, electric stoves and electric ovens are ALL rated in watts......... but how much light do they put out?

What is ALL wrong is that we, as consumers, failed to educate ourselves to these facts. However, manufacturers are slowly starting to come around and start putting lumen ratings on lamps.
 
..............Don't let manufacturers fool you. Some LED and Incadescence manufacturers give you equivalent wattage. They are ALL wrong. .......

Actually, they're perfectly right.

What is ALL wrong is thinking wattage is a measurement of light output. It isn't. Wattage is a measurement of energy consumption. The meter that's on the side of your house is called a WattHour meter. Your toaster, hairdryer, electric clothes dryer, electric water heater, electric stoves and electric ovens are ALL rated in watts......... but how much light do they put out?

What is ALL wrong is that we, as consumers, failed to educate ourselves to these facts. However, manufacturers are slowly starting to come around and start putting lumen ratings on lamps.
 
Hi, I've recently been watching some Brooke Shaden tutorials as I love her work! She recommends using ikea paper lampshades to diffuse the light with 200 watt bulbs for a cheap diy home studio. I thought I would give this a go as it's cheap and I am just learning and just planning on practising with friends etc. I've ordered some paper light shades but wandering what sort of light bulbs would be most flattering for portraits. should I be getting day light type bulbs? I really have no idea. I'm intending on just having a play about in my shed, it has no windows at all. Any advice?
Thanks Gayle
Cheap is not always the best. If you can afford it, start getting some flash units. Either studio strobes or speedlights. In addition to those, diffusers that are designed to work with whichever type you get.

The reason is that light bulbs (even the big ones) don't really put out enough light for portraiture.

As for the white balance, if you capture the Raw files, you can easily adjust the WB in post-capture editing for the correct colors.

Yes, I can imagine that if all you had was a table lamp with a shite lampshade, you could get some really flattering portraits, but everybody moves, so don't expect the photos to be without motion blur.

As to which exact light bulb color to get; shoot in Raw, and don't worry about what color the light is, just don't have several different colors of light in the same shot.

If your model can sit perfectly still, try the ordinary kind of light bulbs and see what you get. It can be done, although there might be a bit of motion blur.
 
..............Don't let manufacturers fool you. Some LED and Incadescence manufacturers give you equivalent wattage. They are ALL wrong. .......

Actually, they're perfectly right.

What is ALL wrong is thinking wattage is a measurement of light output. It isn't. Wattage is a measurement of energy consumption. The meter that's on the side of your house is called a WattHour meter. Your toaster, hairdryer, electric clothes dryer, electric water heater, electric stoves and electric ovens are ALL rated in watts......... but how much light do they put out?

What is ALL wrong is that we, as consumers, failed to educate ourselves to these facts. However, manufacturers are slowly starting to come around and start putting lumen ratings on lamps.
Sparky, I don't quite understand. Many of the LED manufacturers say their 100W LED is equivalent to 1.000W tungsten. The power consumption of the LED is 100W though, and the light output is somewhere around a 400W-500W tungsten light. They can't be perfectly right for my understanding.
 
If you are using a lampshade you also need to be aware of where the light is going.

If you look at a regular lightbulb the light is spread essentially 360 degrees around the entire thing, minus the bottom part. So on a lampshade you are essentially only getting less than about 20% of that light being emitted towards the subject. With CFLs it's even worse as the twisted tube has light going all over the place including back onto itself, thus those are even worse at emitting directed light. With projection designed bulbs (LED, incandescent, etc) you get light pointed towards the subject closer to 100%. A strobe bulb emits light around but also is designed for a diffuser which helps direct that light forward. A speedlight is designed to put the light forward, not up, to the side or through the back, just like a flashlight.

So with lampshades be aware of how the light is being directed (or not) towards the subject. Thus the bulbs light output could be a fraction of what is stated on the subject. Of course in a room that non-direct light could also bounce off the walls/ceiling. In the end the camera is getting the reflected light off the subject, not the scattering of light all over the place.

Also, wasn't Brooke Shadens original attempts, while in film school, at using artificial lights in a paper lantern (not lampshade). This is actually kinda create a nice soft light to use. Of course she had to use a hotter lightbulb because the light was 360. Also, looking at her galleries she uses PhotoShop to the extreme.
 
..............Don't let manufacturers fool you. Some LED and Incadescence manufacturers give you equivalent wattage. They are ALL wrong. .......

Actually, they're perfectly right.

What is ALL wrong is thinking wattage is a measurement of light output. It isn't. Wattage is a measurement of energy consumption. The meter that's on the side of your house is called a WattHour meter. Your toaster, hairdryer, electric clothes dryer, electric water heater, electric stoves and electric ovens are ALL rated in watts......... but how much light do they put out?

What is ALL wrong is that we, as consumers, failed to educate ourselves to these facts. However, manufacturers are slowly starting to come around and start putting lumen ratings on lamps.
Sparky, I don't quite understand. Many of the LED manufacturers say their 100W LED is equivalent to 1.000W tungsten. The power consumption of the LED is 100W though, and the light output is somewhere around a 400W-500W tungsten light. They can't be perfectly right for my understanding.

They're trying to use use old, archaic system that was incorrectly applied to incandescent lamps to make the comparison. It's marketing. If someone had a sense of how 'bright' a 1,000 watt tungsten-filament lamp was, then that person could be led to believe that the 100 watt LED would product the same 'brightness'.

The problem with using watts these days is that watts is not a measurement of light output. Radios can be measured in wattage. So can the hard drive in your computer. Your DVD or VCR. Your printer. Your electric razor. Cell phone charger. They all consume watts. But consumption of power does not require the output to be in the form of light.

How much light does a motor put out? Say, the motor in your washing machine? Or garbage disposal? Or the compressor in your fridge? Zero. Yet they all consume energy, which can be measured in watts.

When CFL's (Compact Fluorescent Lights, those curly-q bulbs) became common, the non-sensical method of rating bulbs in watts got confusing. Folks used to buying 40, 60, 75 and 100 watt bulbs were now looking at shelves filled with 9, 13, 21 and 26 watt CFL 'equivalents'. It was a hard sell as most consumers were so ingrained with the notion that wattage equaled light output. They were skeptical that a 13-watt CFL was 'as bright' as their trusty, old-fashioned 60-watt incandescent.

The mismatch between incandescent watts and LED (and even CFL) watts stems manufacturer's ability to make the best of their data. They can basically 'twist' the data (and what manufacturer doesn't?) to, shall we say, exaggerate their findings in their favor.
 
..............Don't let manufacturers fool you. Some LED and Incadescence manufacturers give you equivalent wattage. They are ALL wrong. .......

Actually, they're perfectly right.

What is ALL wrong is thinking wattage is a measurement of light output. It isn't. Wattage is a measurement of energy consumption. The meter that's on the side of your house is called a WattHour meter. Your toaster, hairdryer, electric clothes dryer, electric water heater, electric stoves and electric ovens are ALL rated in watts......... but how much light do they put out?

What is ALL wrong is that we, as consumers, failed to educate ourselves to these facts. However, manufacturers are slowly starting to come around and start putting lumen ratings on lamps.
Sparky, I don't quite understand. Many of the LED manufacturers say their 100W LED is equivalent to 1.000W tungsten. The power consumption of the LED is 100W though, and the light output is somewhere around a 400W-500W tungsten light. They can't be perfectly right for my understanding.

They're trying to use use old, archaic system that was incorrectly applied to incandescent lamps to make the comparison. It's marketing. If someone had a sense of how 'bright' a 1,000 watt tungsten-filament lamp was, then that person could be led to believe that the 100 watt LED would product the same 'brightness'.

The problem with using watts these days is that watts is not a measurement of light output. Radios can be measured in wattage. So can the hard drive in your computer. Your DVD or VCR. Your printer. Your electric razor. Cell phone charger. They all consume watts. But consumption of power does not require the output to be in the form of light.

How much light does a motor put out? Say, the motor in your washing machine? Or garbage disposal? Or the compressor in your fridge? Zero. Yet they all consume energy, which can be measured in watts.

When CFL's (Compact Fluorescent Lights, those curly-q bulbs) became common, the non-sensical method of rating bulbs in watts got confusing. Folks used to buying 40, 60, 75 and 100 watt bulbs were now looking at shelves filled with 9, 13, 21 and 26 watt CFL 'equivalents'. It was a hard sell as most consumers were so ingrained with the notion that wattage equaled light output. They were skeptical that a 13-watt CFL was 'as bright' as their trusty, old-fashioned 60-watt incandescent.

The mismatch between incandescent watts and LED (and even CFL) watts stems manufacturer's ability to make the best of their data. They can basically 'twist' the data (and what manufacturer doesn't?) to, shall we say, exaggerate their findings in their favor.

Thanks, Sparky. That´s what I was trying to say.
 
480sparky said:
If someone had a sense of how 'bright' a 1,000 watt tungsten-filament lamp was, then that person could be led to believe that the 100 watt LED would product the same 'brightness'.

Do you mean say, a 100 LED fixture that has one hundred, three-Watt, super-efficient LED's positioned very close to highly reflective material that produces 90% reflective efficiency, as opposed to running 1,000 Watts of electricity through a teenty-tiny length of filament?
 
480sparky said:
If someone had a sense of how 'bright' a 1,000 watt tungsten-filament lamp was, then that person could be led to believe that the 100 watt LED would product the same 'brightness'.

Do you mean say, a 100 LED fixture that has one hundred, three-Watt, super-efficient LED's positioned very close to highly reflective material that produces 90% reflective efficiency, as opposed to running 1,000 Watts of electricity through a teenty-tiny length of filament?

Not sure why you're referring to one hundred 3-watt LEDs, and why you're comparing it to a 1,000-watt incandescent. I never mentioned anything about 300-watt LED lights.
 
480sparky said:
If someone had a sense of how 'bright' a 1,000 watt tungsten-filament lamp was, then that person could be led to believe that the 100 watt LED would product the same 'brightness'.

Do you mean say, a 100 LED fixture that has one hundred, three-Watt, super-efficient LED's positioned very close to highly reflective material that produces 90% reflective efficiency, as opposed to running 1,000 Watts of electricity through a teenty-tiny length of filament?

Not sure why you're referring to one hundred 3-watt LEDs, and why you're comparing it to a 1,000-watt incandescent. I never mentioned anything about 300-watt LED lights.

Because you seem to be uninformed about HOW MUCH LIGHT LED fixtures are capable of putting out, and you seem to be ignoring the fact that LED arrays typically have hugely-efficient reflector material, extremely close to the lamps themselves, and because your posts consistently seem to be minimizing LED lights and the performance they tend to produce. I have a 9-led flashlight, with four, 4-Watt bulbs and it produces bright,bright, bright light, and has lasted three years on one set of AA batteries. A 100-watt LED fixture can easily surpass the light output of a 1,000 watt bulb of old-timey technology in some 1920's style reflector.

You mentioned 100-Watts LED and 1,000 Watts t-f, and left the impression that the old-timey technology is the better tech. It's not necessarily, not in 2017. You set up a strawman at the top of your post. I tore your strawman down. You framed the discussion incompletely. Fixed it for you. You wrote: "If someone had a sense of how 'bright' a 1,000 watt tungsten-filament lamp was, then that person could be led to believe that the 100 watt LED would product the same 'brightness'."

That's a bogus comparison. I detailed the equivalent type of gear to your strawman 1,000 Watt t-f lamp...an inexpensive 100-bulkb count LED array. Your strawman was the erquivalewnt of something like a 1,000 Watt tungsten-fiulament lamp, and "five little 20-Watt-bulb nightlights". Youset up the "gravel truck vs barbie Corvette" comparison....I went on to set a more-accurate comparison between like-for-like, not The Hulk vs Schoolboy.

I hope that explains why you were confused: because the comparison you put forth was misleading. For example, 500-Watt photofloods put out LESS light than typical $40 made in China 100-LED lights. And your example 1,000 Watt tungsten filament lamps" these produce BLINDINGLY-harsh light that leaves retinal burn-in if the lamp is even glanced at for a second without diffusion material over it, while LED arrays typically are 1,000-times or more greater in actual AREA, producing light that is orders of magnitude softer, and more-usable for photography, right out of the box.

Your 1,000 Watt tungsten-filament is blinding because the filament is LESS_THAN the area of a match stick shaft, while the LED array is larger, and has more reflector material, is cooler, uses 20x less energy, and so on. "Brightness" alone is not to be confused with suitability for photography use; otherwise, we'd all be lugging arc welders around. The Lowell Omni-Light and Tota-Light lines of light, using tungsten-filament lighting...I've used them...they SUCK unless they are heavily, heavily diffused, with utterly brutal shadows and incredibly bare, bald specular highlights.

Focusing in on your 1,000 Watt tungsten filament vs 100-Watt LED strawman, the fact is that the 1,000- tungsten lamp will need a good three to four stops of diffusion to make light that is even workable for photography....thus rending it the virtual equivalent of an undiffused, LARGER-AREA 100-Watt LED light unit. My point was probably missed by not writing all this out, so people could see that we need to look at the "nature" of a 1,000 Watt tungsten filament lit up like the Sun, versus 100 Watts of light that is actually suitable for photography.

it's not the brightness necessarily: it is the suitability for actual use (harshm,unbworkable light that needs heavy diffusion vs ready-to-use lighting; battery life? 1,000-Watt T-F? Car Battery, 8 hours, 100-Watt LED, Car Battery, Days of runtime; hot enough to burn flesh or set the house on fire, or cool to the touch LED?,etc).
 
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