Hey folks, I’m struggling to mimic natural bright light. I live in a very cloudy dull light climate and winter is worse, so this time of year i need artificial light. I make jewellery pieces and they photograph much much better in natural bright daylight. Many of my pieces are resin based encasing something and the resin reflects the indoor light source so much, deflecting the detail of the object encased. Im using a light box, top mounted ring of LED’s - that’s got a diffuser cloth over, but i still see the ring reflection! What can i do? How do i blast as much light as possible through the object to see inside details and not get glare? Is there a light box that literally has diffused light on all 5 sides? If that would even work? How would you go about photographing something within a glass type material as clearly as possible without daylight? Here’s some reduced file size example pics - 1st pic is light box diffused ring of light above. 2nd pic is out of light box, just room light with camera flash lighting it up. 3rd pic is the type of result i get from natural light - theres ‘glare’ but the inside is still easy to see.
couple things, use a huge soft box, you'll get softer light, you can make your own on the cheap with a bed sheet. also as they are still subjects you can use a much slower shutter speed to increase the exposure.
As Caladina said a bed sheet., also curtain material, it may also pay to purchase a lighting set, a cheap one for Ebay will do the job. it will come with a tripod and lighting equipment.
Thank you for your reply Caladina. On reflection i think my light box is a bad design overall, and i’d need to seriously mod it to make it effective. The light is one direction, harsh, not bright enough really, and the inside is silvery reflective. External bright white diffused light seems to be what i need to work towards. It would be so nice to take pictures that resemble real-life viewing of the object, it’s become quite the challenge…but sooo worth it!
Thank you Craig - it seems i over-estimated the capability of my lighting box! Trial and error with these things… Especially as im photographing glossy glass-like material, i didnt think about horrid glare completely ruining my pictures. It seems more a focal point of the picture than the subject! A proper small lighting set-up sounds like it’ll be worth the investment.
Not sure what you have for a softbox, but the silver reflective material allows the light to be pointed toward that and bounces back at the diffusion panel. That design is standard, so i dont think that is the issue. Take that 47in octogon i mentioned, its silver on the inside of the umbrella side then white panel where light escapes and you would place close to a person for a headshot. By all standards that is on the smaller side of a softbox, but works well for headshots with a speedlight. You ideally want the softbox to be larger so it is spread across the reflective material inside and is not as concentrated, this allows you to also get real close to the subject with the larger the softened light source.
for what its worth sylvanian led light battens which are the led lights to replace florescent ones dont flicker so they make for decent cheap long lights for making soft boxes, last year due to the crazy uk energy prices i went on a blitz and changed all my house and garage lights to them, one in the hall i have left on constantly since the install, all still work fine a couple i have mounted to a strip of wood with a PU plate so i can use on a tripod or C stand.
