Studio Lighting w/ tungsten?

[Unloco777]

Are tungsten lights ideal for studio photography or does the proper lighting depend on the studio setup?

[Asylum Steve]

Are tungsten lights ideal for studio photography or does the proper lighting depend on the studio setup?

Welcome to the site, loco. I know this isn't the best answer, but truth is, any kind of lighting gear can be learned and used effectively in the studio. And each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Many just starting out with studio lighting like to be able to see the effect of the light as they use it. This is one of the benefits of continuous lighting like tungsten. Plus it's generally cheap.

The drawback is the heat, the continual power draw, and the relatively low illumination output. Color balance can also be a factor, but shooting digital now means a pretty easy WB adjustment.

Bottom line is most experienced studio shooters use a variety of types of lighting, choosing what best fits the job, subject, or effect and style they want...

[Unloco777]

Well, my problem is I am shooting a person in front of a solid white paper bg. The tungsten lights are putting a yellow tint to my backdrop. I tried doing manual white balance adjustements (moving wb away from amethist) with no good result. Any suggestions?

[jorgemonkey]

Did you try setting a manual white balance on your camera? I used to use a pair of Tungsten lights at work for product photography. I'd set my white balance by taking a grey card under the lights and taking a picture of it, and my white balance came out great on the products I took.

I'm not sure what camera equipment you've got, but when try shooting RAW and then playing with the white balance adjustments in whatever software came with your camera.

[Unloco777]

I am using a Canon EOS 20D (with stock lense). I shifted the white balance all the way towards blue and I set my color temp to 2800k. That's all I could think to do. Any suggestions? Also, I tried shooting in RAW but I never figured out how to capture RAW images as aposed to JPEGS..

[jorgemonkey]

You should check your camera manual on how to do a custom white balance. I don't use Canon, but it should be in there somewhere. There is a couple of Canon shooters here that I know will pitch in some good info

One of the nice things about RAW is that if you screw up say your White Balance on some shots you can easily correct it. You can correct the color balance in a jpg but (for me at least) it takes much longer.

If in doubt, you could probably turn it to auto white balance and give it a try.