The Unconventional Way

Last week I told you a bit about conventional portrait lighting with studio flashlights. But what if you are just starting photography and you just don’t have the budget for expensive lights? Like I told you last week, you have to be creative and some times think outside the box.

Here a picture of a ring light I built myself. It is made out of 10 200Watt bulbs, screwed onto a ring shaped wood. All of them are looped together and connected to a power cable. The stand of this lamp was made by a welder. Total cost was not more than N 15 000.

Unfortunately, the low price brings along some disadvantages. First of all it does not flash. Meaning, you will have to set your camera on a high ISO and use a very light sensitive lens. And because the bulbs we are using cause very yellowish light, you have to white balance your camera or set the light temperature in your camera from 5500 Kelvin down to 3200 Kelvin.

Secondly it can get very hot because of the number of  200Watt bulbs. So please inform your model not to get to close to it.

The advantage of this lamp is definitely the light quality. The circular arrangement of the bulbs makes a very soft, even and shadow less light on the subject.

Another nice effect is the ring light in the eyes of your subject.

You can also try out to place the lamp in an angle (beside your camera) or right in front of your subject. Meaning you will photograph right through the ring.

Na dann, gut Licht!

Your Yetunde

Yetundeform2@yahoo.com , www.camara-studios.com