How to Choose Studio Lights
Before buying lights for photography, you may need to ask yourself a couple of questions. You may need to consider your budget and ask yourself what kind of photography would help create the effects that you are trying to produce. You may also want to see how many outlets that you have around your studio to make sure you purchase the right amount of light equipment. There are three basic studio lights: flash (strobes), hotlights (tungsten lights) and cool lights.
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Instructions
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Consider hotlights. Hotlights are lights that consist of very high watts which makes them very hot and bright on the subject. They provide a steady and natural light, which helps you to see everything that you need to focus on when taking a photo. The lights also help you to determine if the image is sharp enough when taking still photography. When using hotlights for a portrait or for a modeling shoot, it creates sharp shadows around the subject. However, photographers can use reflectors to soften those sharp shadows. Lighting should be 45 degrees off to the side of your subject and 45 degrees above the subject.
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Use cool lights. Cool lights are fluorescent lights. They are not as hot as hotlights, providing photographers with a longer time to shoot a picture of a person or object. Cool lights are used for daylight photography and can be used with a flash. In addition, cool lights help you to see where the shadows will fall on the subject. You can adjust the power of the cool lights to get the photo effect that you desire. Size is important. Large fluorescent lights provide softer lighting on the subject. Smaller fluorescent lights may give more sharper shadows and lighting on the subject which can be balanced with a reflector. Photographers can purchase cool lights with daylight-colored balances to balance the background color of their pictures. Cool lights have the tendency to appear greenish in comparison to other lights. To counter this, you can set your camera to white balance to help remove the greenish cast in the photo. You can also purchase a color-correction filter or use a photo-editing program to adjust the photo yourself.
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Purchase a flash. A flash has lots of power. A flash is easier to use and there are two main types of flashes: hot shoe flashes and studio flashes. Hot shoe flashes are commonly mounted on top of a camera. Studio flashes are a little different. Studio flashes are battery-operated and provide a lot more power. You can use studio flashes with a modifier. However, you should not point the flash directly at the subject. This will cause harsh lighting and shadows. To make the lighting and the shadows soft, you can place a white umbrella in front of the lighting to reduce the harsh lighting and shadows on the subject's face.
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Tips & Warnings
Hotlights are very hot. Therefore, a photographer has a small amount of time to shoot a photo of his subject.
Cool lights have very little power and slow shutter speeds.
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