hot lights for still photography

I’ve been experimenting lately with my poor-man-hot-lights (the halogen modeling lamps from my strobes) for indoor lighting. Mixed with ambient light, the effects are more subtle than strobe. The bed shot of Lindsey in yesterday’s post was shot this way.

 

Did a little meter test today that I’m sharing because other photographers might find it useful. I compared a Paul C Buff (PCP) Zeus head connected to a Z2500 powerpack, a White Lighting (WL) 1600 monohead, and a PCB ringflash connected to the Z2500 powerpack. All have halogen modeling lamps that were turned to full power.

 

I metered everything at ISO 100, 1/50th second, five feet from the lights. Here’s what I found:

 

  • WL 1600 with bare reflector metered @ f1.3
  • Zeus head with bare reflector metered @ f1.4
  • Ringflash with diffuser on metered @ f1.8
  • Ringflash with no diffuser (bare reflector) metered @ f1.8

    •  
    Still not very powerful compared to “real” hot light. But interesting to note there’s almost a full f-stop difference between the WL and the ringflash. The ringflash with the diffuser seems to provide a broader and more diffused light than the bare reflectors though. I’m hoping to experiment more weekend and will share results when I have ‘em.

     

    Pete Springer Photography, Portland, Oregon

    Tags:

    This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    Leave a Reply