How to get more light

[relaxinghobby]

 

How much light does a clear photo need? This has 2 desk lamps and the cameras flash, but still not enough light to give a good exposer.

 

I seem to only get enough light during the summer on a bright sun-lit day and photographing the models on a sunny window sill.

 

So how best can I recreate a sunny summer day at any time of the year, or at night.

[Rumblestripe]

With a setup like that a lot of light is simply scattered as the lamp sends the light in nearly every direction. Spotlamps are better. I use a couple of cheap halogen desktop lamp from Ikea in a brightly lit room with a sheet of white cad to act as a reflector to fill in the shadows a bit. I wouldn't claim it's anything like a "bright summer day" but it is enough to illuminate a smallish model to photograph (such as a small tank engine in 4mm) you can then use a photo-editing program like Photoshop to tweak the white balance closer to your summer day. Of course if budget is not an issue you can investigate a "pro" setup with daylight floods, reflectors and the like.

 

However, the best solution is of course to use daylight!

 

 

 

Thought about this afterwards.

 

Turn off the flash. You will probably find that you won't be able to hand hold the camera but if you don't have a tripod use a bag of rice or a cushion and set the exposure delay so that the action of depressing the shutter doesn't shake the camera it will be a long exposure but you won't have the problem of the camera guessing the settings for the flash (and getting it wrong) it will expose for what light there is.

[lakeview770]

You could also try using a sheet of white card/ foam core board to the right to throw some light back in to the subject.

 

Andrew

[yorkie_pudd]

A cheap way for light reflection i used some years ago, was open up a cereal box to V shape it or cut the sides off leaving the large front or back pannels. then get some tin foil and glue dull side to the card board. then just placing the light in away to face the reflectors and adjust them to bounce the light on to the area you want highlighted better. obviously takes time trying not to crease or rip the tin foil and get it flat smooth as possible, cheap n simple.

 

Ken

[Chris Nevard]

Try to avoid domestic energy saver bulbs as well - they are very difficult to get a good white balance with because there are all sorts of colour spikes (mostly yellow) which will give false colours. Even shooting RAW it can be tricky to balance for them. Good old fashion filament bulbs are far better and still easy to get hold of. Low energy photographic bulbs are good too (Google for dozens of suppliers) and will often fit into a domestic angle poise if it's screw thread.

[relaxinghobby]

My layout is lit with over head strip lights sold as the Link-Light system from Wicks, these tend to make for very red and yellow tinted digital photographs.

 

For close ups of models on their own when they are off the layout I am now putting them into a shoe box with a white interior so using it as an all round reflector with a desk lamp with a energy saver bulb providing back ground lighting. Some times the flash on the camera fires sometimes it does not, but this tends to produce pictures with strong shadows. I shall have to find my remain filament bulbs.

 

Are daylight bulbs sold for doing craft work any good, the sort that are a filament lamp painted with a blue lacquer, I think I have one somewhere.

 

 

In the top picture the flash came on, in the bottom one the only light is from an energy saver bulb.

[lakeview770]

Taken with a single light source a V Flat ( posh photographic name for 2 sheets of foam core board joined with duct tape) This was the first one out of the bag really needs some adjustments but didnt get time to do it.

[Chris Nevard]

_{Relaxinghooby; Yes, those blue 'craft' bulbs are excellent, they're not quite daylight, but most digi-cams will have no problem getting a good white balance on 'auto'. Stock up while you can, I'm unsure of any low energy replacement yet.}

 

_{Lakeview770. love the glass used here, wonky bogies here though!}

[lakeview770]

Mr nevard those bogies are perfectly square and true, its just the photographer was too slack to retake the shot.When I initialy looked at the shot with the bogies square it didnt quite look right on the screen (shooting tethered) and the room was very dark I guess my eyes didnt quite adjust themselves the whole underframe kind of melted together in a mass of black. When I skewed the bogies various parts of the bogies caught the highlights and looked good but back ib the house when I reviewed he shot I noticed that skewing the bogied stood out too much and did distract from the shot.

[relaxinghobby]

Two digital photos of the same subject, the dark red one is lit by a desk lamp with a energy saver bulb, the orange one is lit by the same bulb plus a blue craft filament bulb.

 

 

 

 

The van is made from Ian Kirk sides cut about on a Lima Brake Van chassis it's self reduced in length.

[relaxinghobby]

Two digital photos of the same subject, the dark red one is lit by a desk lamp with a energy saver bulb, the orange one is lit by the same bulb plus a blue craft filament bulb.

 

 

 

 

The van is made from Ian Kirk sides cut about on a Lima Brake Van chassis it's self reduced in length.

[TheEngineShed]

If you camera has a white balance, use it with a white card under your lighting, then you only have to worry about whether the bulb or tube is full spectrum or not. The filament bulbs with the "Daylight" blue coating on the inside have holes in the spectrum, at least on this side of the Atlantic....

 

Mixing light sources can also be a bad idea, I try to stick with the same type of bulb or florescent tube...

[RichardJones]

If your camera has a hot shoe for external flash get hold of a Yongnuo YN460 (Around £35) flash and you'll be laughing. I have a nice deep window recess which is all white. I generally place the subject against the one wall, tilt the flash to point into the opposite top corner and bounce it that way. Works a treat. Non railway related, but that's exactly how this was shot:

 

Pentax ME carbon by R. Alan Jones, on Flickr

 

Otherwise Sunlight is best, there is nothing on earth that can give you as much light as the sun can.

 

This was shot with a 60W daylight bulb camera left and natural windowlight camera right.

 

Film Is Not Dead by R. Alan Jones, on Flickr

 

And rail related, this was shot in the same windowsill as the Pentax but on a sunny day, with the light streaming in from the left I used a sheet of white paper to reflect light onto the right hand end so it came out nicely. (There is a sheet of blue card behind the model, not dodgy white balance)

 

 

[Katier]

I suspect the OP has a more fundamental problem. They probably shot on program mode and let the camera sort everything out.

 

The Camera probably exposed for the background and thus under-exposed the foreground (even with the flash firing) causing the problem.

 

Manual mode and tweaking the exposure a stop or two would probably improve things. The light advice I all agree with, btw, just there are other issues I too believe.