Old Grow Lights a Ghetto Solution?

[PixelRabbit]

Since I don't have the funds to purchase any lighting I started looking around the house for things that might work for me to learn with. I have two large "growing lights" hanging in a greenhouse room that aren't currently in use. Unfortunately I have to wait for Mr. Rabbit to get his butt up on the ladder and take one down for me to get a look at it and identify exactly what it is.
So, anyone have any knowledge of these kinds of lights and what potential these might have or not have with photography?

Not sure if this one is of any help but it's the best angle I could get on it without a big ladder and I don't do ladders willingly lol

 

[pixmedic]

will depend on what the wattage is on them. they are going to be WARM though, whatever they are.

 

[o hey tyler]

Sooooooooo, uhhhh... What have you grown with them "grow lights" up there in good ol' Canada?

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thanks Pix, good point about the heat. (mind you today I would welcome it! lol)

Sooooooooo, uhhhh... What have you grown with them "grow lights" up there in good ol' Canada?

I can only speak for the old owner, he grew the natural choice..... Fig trees lol!

 

[lonewolfsx]

Thanks Pix, good point about the heat. (mind you today I would welcome it! lol)

I'm pretty certain that he means warm as in extremely warm, yellow white balance on them. They will probably also be thermally warm, but they will definitely be way more yellow in color than a regular flash or strobe. This might not be bad though, unless it is freaky unnatural looking you might be able to use them to emulate sunlight pretty accurately. They won't fire in a burst like a photographic flash either, so it'll basically be like working with always-on modelling lights and just using that for your shots. It won't help you learn flash power settings and the balancing of that with your camera's settings, but it might help you learn where to position lights around a subject to achieve certain appearances. You also may have to use some manual white balance settings in your camera, shoot RAW and you will be able to adjust the white balance in post processing which is useful. You'll also *probably* be at higher ISO's than you'd use with actual flashes if you were to use these indoors (I'm assuming these aren't insanely bright... they might be though)... maybe you could use it to take a shot of someone and emulate the famous "window light" look, regardless of the sun's position (or at night even) with one of these subject-level just out of the frame 90° or so.

EDIT: I just did a quick google search about greenhouse lights because I wanted to know what kind of wattage those types of lights generally run at, and be advised that there are quite a few different types of bulbs for lights like these that offer some pretty strange color spectrums (most indoor lights are Argon, and mostly yellow-white), but some of these lights come with some crazy stuff in them. Apparently the "red" side of the spectrum promotes healthy plant growth so they might be very orange in color. You could try to normalize their color output though, use some type of transparent colored plastic (I got sheets of stuff like this from a hobby store when I did a science project on something similar to this as a little kid) and if it is red light, put a green and blue sheet in front of it and it will be far closer to white.

 

[Patriot]

Depends on the type of lights used. Some lights have a different color spectrum for growing the leaves(or green parts) while others have a spectrum to induce fruit production and flowering.(red spectrum)

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thank you so much Lonewolf and Patriot!
So it sounds like it might do the trick to get me started. I will get Mr. Rabbit on taking one down so I can see the wattage on them. They are large, about 3 ft across and hanging amongst mature Fig trees. I know he used to start new trees from these as gifts but the lights are way up in the rafters so I tend to think he used them on the mature trees at some point.
I will definitely update this thread with what I learn!

 

[Robin_Usagani]

As long as you are not mixing light, it should work. Light is light!

But seriously though, light is not expensive. I can buy a yongnuo manual flash for like $40 and a cheap radio trigger. I like flash better because the mobility (cordless with AA batteries)

 

[PixelRabbit]

Thanks Robin, well damn, I guess I didn't do my homework well enough, when I did research flash I didn't realize these manual ones were an option. I actually have an old Canon speedlight that is missing it's battery cover (contacts are in the cover) that I'm wondering if I can fix. The Yongnuo might be an option in a month or two though. I'm really starting to feel limited by not having flash/lights and starting to chomp at the bit to figure it out if even "ghetto" solutions for now. Mind you I suspect the bulbs for the grow lights might add up to at least the price of the Yongnuo ....

 

[lonewolfsx]

For sure check out the Yungnou flashes. I bought two of the "high-end" YN-560 models for $120 or so, I was originally about to dump $500 for the SB-900 Nikon or an Alien Bee. Now I'm probably going to buy another pair of those and use the leftover cash for a softbox, beauty dish, etc.

I was pretty worried about the quality of the flashes, but they are totally legit. I used a Canon 580EX for work for about a year and they are pretty much the same build quality... pretty awesome. They are entirely manual, but that wasn't a problem for me as most off camera lighting you are shooting with manual settings anyway.. TTL doesn't work well for off-camera flash. One other cool advantage, those YN-560's can be used pretty much with any brand's system except the Sony Alphas.

You might be able to sell those greenhouse lights and turn that straight around into the YN flashes... try ebay or something. It's worth a shot, I've sold several thousand dollars worth of surplus stuff I found in my parents' attic!