Light Box Set Up

[flintlock62]

I just purchased an economical light tent and need to know what color spectrum to use. Cool white, daylight, full spectrum, or daylight? I just need a cheap setup, not a full profesional system that costs mega bucks. A hot light set up is fine. I will be shooting small product for sale on the internet.

[Asylum Steve]

It shouldn't really matter, as long as the White Balance in your camera matches. If you decide to mix lighting types, use a WB setting of Average. And even if you mess that up, WB and color temp are easily corrected in photoshop...

[flintlock62]

It shouldn't really matter, as long as the White Balance in your camera matches. If you decide to mix lighting types, use a WB setting of Average. And even if you mess that up, WB and color temp are easily corrected in photoshop...

Maybe I should further explain I have a Nikon L5 P&S. The white balance settings are flash and cloudy. I do not own Photoshop at the present. I have been unemployed for 11 months and am starting a home business because I have nothing available in landing gainful employment. As my business grows, I will be able to purchase more professional equipment. Photo-John has already steered me to a Canon XSi as a starter camera. I need cheapo, but proper lighting help my camera is not capible of producing.

[Photo-John]

I'm glad you mentioned the camera. I looked up the specs and your camera has a full range of white balance presets, including incandescent/tungsten. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have manual white balance, but that's ok. I would recommmend tungsten hot lights and the incandescent white balance preset will work fine.

Can you please explain a little more about the color spectrum options? here are you getting these from? Are these light options or something else? Standard tungsten hot lights will be the best because your camera has that incandescent setting. You could also use daylight balanced lights. But I'm not sure I would trust them to be accurate. And since you can't shoot raw you want to make sure you get it right in the camera.

[Don Kondra]

If you use 5500k lights you won't have a white balance issue.

Just google Alzo Digital

Cheers, Don

[flintlock62]

I'm glad you mentioned the camera. I looked up the specs and your camera has a full range of white balance presets, including incandescent/tungsten. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have manual white balance, but that's ok. I would recommmend tungsten hot lights and the incandescent white balance preset will work fine.

Can you please explain a little more about the color spectrum options? here are you getting these from? Are these light options or something else? Standard tungsten hot lights will be the best because your camera has that incandescent setting. You could also use daylight balanced lights. But I'm not sure I would trust them to be accurate. And since you can't shoot raw you want to make sure you get it right in the camera.

It is my understanding that the color temprature shoud be around the 5,500 range. That is supposed to simulate outdoor lighting. Daylight bulbs are supposed to be around 5,500 kelvin.

Where are these settings for tungsten, incandescent, etc. on my L5? I have looked all through the menus and can not find anything simular. My color options are as follows: Standard color, vivid color, black and white, and cyanotype. My white balance is either flash or cloudy. I do not find anything else.

My firmware version is Coolpix L5 Ver. 1.0. Can this be upgraded?

[Photo-John]

5500k daylight bulbs should work as long as you set the white balance to daylight. You do want to lock it in for studio shooting, if you can.

What mode is the camera set to? If it's in pure auto "dummy mode," then you might not have all the available white balance options. P&S camera controls are usually limited by the shooting mode. For maximum options you probably want it in P.

[flintlock62]

I have looked all through the menus and the only option is the "dummy" mode!

[JamesV]

Take a look at your L5 manual, page 75 talks about the different White Balance options that you have. Auto (default setting), White bal. preset, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy and Flash. Your current mode will also show up on the LCD screen as shown on page 6, item 20 from the manual.

If you don't have the manual handy you can look thru it HERE...

James

[flintlock62]

Take a look at your L5 manual, page 75 talks about the different White Balance options that you have. Auto (default setting), White bal. preset, Daylight, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Cloudy and Flash. Your current mode will also show up on the LCD screen as shown on page 6, item 20 from the manual.

If you don't have the manual handy you can look thru it HERE...

James

Actually, I do not have a manual, but I did find the settings sort of hidden. This camera was given to me. I had expected to see all the settings when I opened the white balance screen. All I saw were flash and cloudy. Simply pressing the down button revealed the other settings. That kind of makes me feel dumb!

[JamesV]

Don't worry about that, one of the reasons that I posted the link for the manual.

If you don't ask it then it's a dumb questions. We are all here to help one another in this fantastic thing called photography.

Hope everything works out for you and post any more questions or troubles that you run into.

James

[flintlock62]

Don't worry about that, one of the reasons that I posted the link for the manual.

If you don't ask it then it's a dumb questions. We are all here to help one another in this fantastic thing called photography.

Hope everything works out for you and post any more questions or troubles that you run into.

James

As soon as I get my light box, which should be Tuesday, I will see what type pictures this cheap P&S takes. Low light has been a problem. I can only take pictures when sunlight is shining through my bedroom window. Hope my business quickly takes off so I can get that real camera, a Canon XSi as Photo-John suggested.

[flintlock62]

5500k daylight bulbs should work as long as you set the white balance to daylight. You do want to lock it in for studio shooting, if you can.

What mode is the camera set to? If it's in pure auto "dummy mode," then you might not have all the available white balance options. P&S camera controls are usually limited by the shooting mode. For maximum options you probably want it in P.

Please explain what "P" is. With no manual I have had to play around with getting pictures. The white balance screen only showed flash and cloudy. I expected all WB setting to show up, but I clicked on the down arrow and lo and behold, there were the other settings! I am supposed to be a reasonably intelligent person, but sometimes........

[OldClicker]

Here is the manual for the L5. - TF

http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/coolpix/L5_en.pdf

[flintlock62]

I finally got my light box, and the quality of my pictures are fantastic for a pont and shoot camera. I need to play around with the setings a little, but I find I can post pic's for the internet without having to buy a DSLR at this point. I tried to post an example, but it said I needed to resize my pictures. How do I do this?

[jorgemonkey]

Do you have photoshop, or some other photo editing program? We can help walk you through resizing the images if you do.

[PWhite214]

There are quite a few Photo editing programs available for free. I like Irfanview http://www.irfanview.com/ for ease of use.

I hope this helps,

Phil