Best Setting For A Lamp

mobutter · Feb 14, 2017

I need to shoot a group of lamps and I'm having an issue with settings and lighting. I need to have a decent amount of light to show detail on the body, but when I do that, I wash out the lampshade. Ideally I would like to show the bulb inside the lampshade as being "on" but still have enough light on the piece to catch all the detail. I'm using a 1-DS Canon Mark III. Anyone have suggestions as to the best type of lighting and settings? Thanks.

dasmith232 · Feb 14, 2017

Shooting lamps sounds like a product shot. And product shots generally mean very close control over the exposure. How much time and/or effort do you want to put into the shots?

The basic problem sounds like a dynamic range issue. My first question would be, do you prefer to do multi-shot HDR's or single-shot?

Starting with single-shot options... because the bulb and/or shade is always at the top, this could be a situation for a graduated or split field neutral density filter. That's a filter that darkens half (or a portion) of the frame, and in this case the top half. You can get a cheap square filter system for $20 (Neewer), or $50 (Cokin) or hundreds (Lee, etc.). I'm assuming that you'd need to use a 2- or 3-stop filter.

The advantage to this approach is that you'd be getting the shot in-camera and possibly getting several shots done quickly if it's going to be many lamps. You'd probably still want/need to do some post-processing to fine-tune lifting the shadows or taming the highlights. But the time at the computer would/should be pretty minimal.

The second single-shot option is to throw flash at the non-illuminated portions of the lamps. You'd need to "flag" the flash (or set up blinders) to control where the flash goes. You'd have to spend some time setting up the shot and probably making flag adjustments for each shot. But you'd be able to keep post-processing time to a minimum.

Going with multi-shot, this is a classic fit for HDR photography. Using a program like Photomatix or what is now built into the Adobe products, you can take multiple pictures of each lamp for the highlights and details and combine the separate frames in post-processing. If you have Lightroom or Photoshop (as part of the Adobe bundle) or Photomatix, then there's nothing else to buy. The individual frames can be captured quickly (with bracketing), and you'd need to spend more time at the computer.

These are just some starter ideas that could be adapted to how many final images you're after or other details.

dasmith232 · Feb 14, 2017

And regarding settings, that depends on the intensity of the lights and the ambient light upon your set. Can't answer that one blind...

astroNikon · Feb 14, 2017

Can you post an example photo,
and also a list of the lighting equipment you are using for the shot ?

KmH · Feb 14, 2017

I envision the use of reflectors to add light to the lamp bodies and black flats to subtract light from the lamp shades.
What are you using under the lamps and for a background?

But as mentioned no one here can tell you what exposure settings to use.
Do you have a hand held light meter so you can spot meter the incident light?

I highly recommend the book Light Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting that is now in it's 5th edition it is so widely used by photographers.
The book is almost a product photographer's lighting Rosetta Stone.

TCampbell · Feb 14, 2017

I'd think about using a flash, but gel the flash to match the lamp. E.g. use a "CTO" gel (CTO = Color Temperature Orange) or 1/4 CTO (same color - just weaker). This lets you balance the light and not over-expose the lamp in the shot... but still match the color temperature (so you don't get the mixed lighting colors of "white" flash with "orange" lamp where adjusting the white balance for one causes the other to create wonky lighting.)

If you own a flash, then you can pick up the gel to wrap on the flash head. Lee Filters and Rosco both make gels designed to help you match the color temperature of your flash to the color temperature of other lights in the environment.

greybeard · Feb 18, 2017

The simple solution is to use a flash and drag the shutter, meaning set you camera flash setting to SLOW sync. This will let the flash elluminate scene and the slower shutter speed will let the bulb come through. Experiment with different f/stops and shutter speeds until you get the result you are after. Ideally you would use 2 or 3 flashes. (this is how I would do it)

dennybeall · Feb 18, 2017

I'm always looking for cheap and easy so would take two shots, one for the shade and one for lamp body, and just put them together with Photoshop.
Studio guys with equipment could put a small slave flash in place of the bulb and shoot that way.

table1349 · Feb 18, 2017

When photographing a lamp it is good to remember that lamps are quite like fast lenses. Just because you have an f1.2 lens doesn't mean you have to use it at f1.2.

Same thing applies to a lamp. Just because it is rated for a 60 watt bulb doesn't mean you have to have a 60 watt bulb in it. Put a very low power bulb in the lamp or get a plugin lamp dimmer. Keep in mind that lamp dimmers usually only work with incandescent or halogen bulbs.