Studio lights -- product photography

[Deborah]

PLEASE forgive me for not doing more research. I am soooo slammed at work that I barely have time to hold my head up!

I need some constant studio lighting for product photography. I am using a Pentax P/S digital that serves the purpose just fine at this time -- but need some good lights. Maybe in the spring I will be able to afford a 35 digital and a better setup, but for this 4th quarter I have to make do.

You can see what I have been doing at www.treatsfortroops.com... the gift shop where all of the package are... mostly I shot them with the Pentax, though Hans (yes, for those who might remember him -- "our" or PR review Hans) shot some of them with a digital 35.

Thoughts? Thank you, thank you!

Deborah

[another view]

Hi Deborah, welcome back!

A friend did some similar product photography a while back using a p&s digital with great results. He used the internal flash in the camera to trigger the studio light's optical slaves. These were standard monolights, like Calumet Travelite 750. They offer packages, but the 750 is probably more light than you really need. They have one with half the power, however it isn't much less expensive. The smaller ones (Travelite 375) might be a better choice though because of the wider apertures of p&s digital cameras. This stuff can get expensive quick, though.

Can you set a custom white balance with your camera? If not, maybe the answer is to get a camera you can do that with. You might get by just fine with "hot lights" which are high powered tungsten lights. They'll be much less expensive to buy, but will not usually give you very good color with an auto white balance setting on a digital camera. Less expensive enough that you could maybe get a set of these and a new digital for the price of a couple monolights. The main drawback with hot lights is the heat, which can make people sweat. Looks like this might not be a problem though.

The above links are just ideas - there are more options here than the cameras themselves! Hope this helps!

[Deborah]

Thanks for the tips! And it is good to know that someone remembers me.

I will check the white balance thing on my camera... it seems like it does have that feature.

I really appreciate your response. I hope you are doing well.

Deborah