Photo box / cube & lighting

[Chumpy]

Hi
I'm a novice photographer.
I have seen some 80cm photo box / cube units on Ebay. They allow for a mini 'studio' style environment to be setup inside them, for small items.
They come with different colour backgrounds (Red, Blue etc).

They look good, but what sort of extra lights would I need??

There are some lights which I have seen, but they just seem to be spiral flourescents, and nothing really special.... although they are very expensive.
Are they just spiral flourescents or something more??

My questions are:
a). Are the 80cm Photo box / cubes worthwhile?
b). What lights could I need to light this?? (ie. lights external to the cube, but lighting the contents)
c). Can I just use spiral flourescents?? (ie. the kind from a DIY store?)

Thanks

 

[Rob]

a) Yes, they're great for
b) Bright ones - flash guns, studio strobes or say 1500W worklights
c) They probably won't be bright enough and you'll need a really long exposure

The bonus of a light box / cube is that it neutralises the light to an even white. The downside is that quite a lot of light is reflected off it and therefore you need some lighting with whoompf to get it properly lit in a normal room.

Rob