Continuous Lighting recommendations for furniture shoot?

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dtr43

New member
I'm going to be helping a friend shoot some photos of his custom furniture and need some advice on lighting. The furniture ranges from small end tables and chairs up to large dining tables and will be done in a spare room at his shop. The room has no windows. What kind of continuous lighting setup would you recommend to light these products? He is looking at buying the lights so he can leave them permanently set up and wants to get something that is adequate for the job but also reasonable on the pocket book. Links or model names etc would be greatly appreciated as I am not a lighting specialist and would like to point him in the right direction.
 
Depends on what the aesthetics should be like being product photography? Best budget way imo are daylight CFL softboxes, they give a nice gentle light but you don't have much choice in modelling it except making them bit more directional with grids. Good output for little money. You probably want bigger softboxes for larger furnitures.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trk...l+softbox&_nkw=cfl+softbox&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Those cheap ones will not be the best built quality but if it's meant to be set up just once and then just moved around they should work well for that.
 
Provided the room can take the heat, tungsten fresnel lights are the best way to bring out the color and grain of wooden furniture. Avoid soft-boxes and large reflective flats as these can cause a lot of reflective sheen from the finish of the wood. ( I shot a few still photo furniture catalogs in the early 90's using studio strobes with grid-spots instead of fresnel lights, but the lighting effect is very similar )

Here are a couple sample photos that demo the look that I am thinking of...

Desk Image.jpg

Table.jpg
 
I have done many furniture shoots in the past with transperency film ( using medium format Hasselblad) . I used 2 Lowel Tota lights ( very affordable) with the 750w halogen each. A third and fourth one was necessary if I needed more depth of field or used a polarizing filter. Reflexions and shadows is what to watch out for. Today a laptop on site is an excellent way to monitor the shots and correct as needed. Photoshop has a perspective control that is invaluable to keep lines straight.
With 1500 watts and today's sensors, it should be easy to shoot F11 or smaller, especially if camera is tripod mounted.
 
Thank you for all the responses! These will be product shots for his website and he wants them to look professional. Affordable would be something that gets the job done without being the latest and greatest, or overkill. The Lowel Totas sound perfect if they will do the job!

Norman did you shoot with these lights as is, no umbrellas or soft boxes?
 
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I use d the lights at rare times with small 24" umbrellas just to get some of the shine off the furniture, especially when shooting glass tables. That's why I use the polarizing filter. It does a great job in controlling those unavoidable reflexions. You may need to do constant placement of the light(s) to get the effect you need. Many times I was lucky and had to work within a low white ceiling. In those instances I simply bounced 3 totas and everything looked fine. Sometimes you want a little shadow showing, and I would put 2 bounced and 1 direct. Those Totas have a huge wide coverage without anything added. If you need to highlight a certain piece within a set, the easy way ( and lazy way) I use Photoshop lighting effects. Those were many years ago, but at that time all I wanted to do was get the job done in the most affordable way possible. The Totas are very small for the amount of light they produce and spare bulbs are extremely cheap and last almost forever. I would bring a few spares in case they break by accident. Just keep in mind the wall circuit's amp capacity as each light may draw up to 8 amps (120V). If using extension cables, most likely, get the proper size gauge for the length you will be needing. Extra long ones especially in the 30-50 ft range may overheat because of the wire resistance, thicker ones are needed here.
 
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