More natural light inside?

[JollySipper]

Hey, guys! I have a lot of trouble with the lighting that I have here inside my apartment when it comes to taking pics..... I can never capture the color of what I'm shooting. I'll show you an example..... This body is very close to the green in this first pic.....

That pic is under an overcast sky outside in natural light. You can clearly see it's green... This below pic was taken on top of my oven under a couple long florescent light bulbs on the ceiling, and a CF bulb under my range hood.

It looks like a completely different color! So, is there a way, maybe some sort of special bulb or something, that would give me more natural colors when I shoot my models? I'm thinking of ordering a magnifying lamp here soon, maybe the LEDs in it would help?

Thanks for any ideas and discussion!

[Mittagskind]

That is normal. Colors appear different in daylight than in artificial light. You can try to compensate for this by setting the color temperature on the camera, or you can subsequently change the color temperature of the image using an image editing program until the result is correct.

When we look at the same green leaf in sunlight and then in shade, our brain says it's the same green, even though our eyes are actually seeing two different greens. But the camera has no brain and records what it sees. You have to tell it what green it should see.

Edited September 8, 2023 by Mittagskind

[stitchdup]

maybe some daylighter leds might work for taking pics,

[Straightliner59]

Fluorescent light could certainly make the green look blue. Most of the lights I have anymore are "daylight" LEDs. I especially love them at the bench.

[Anglia105E]

Hi Tim . . . I use 100 watt Daylight Bulbs that I buy in a pack from Ebay, which are very effective. Most standard LED bulbs will produce a ' blue tinge ' to your photos of model cars and dioramas. Sometimes I do take the model cars outside for a photo shoot, but maybe you don't have that option.

I haven't come across daylight LED's so far . . .

One other factor to keep in mind, is that if you photograph the model car against a completely white background you will get one colour, and the same model car against a brown or black background will give you a different colour. This will also affect highlights and shadows too.

David

[Pierre Rivard]

Hi TJ, I went the same route as you about lighting until I got to understand lighting temperature and what I wanted to achieve.

Temperatures for different sources of lighting

2700K - incandescent, 3000K - Halogen, 4000K - fluorescent, 2500K - sunrise/sunset, 5000K - noon sunlight, 6000K - daylight overcast

In the end I did not go for daylight type lighting because all my interior house lighting is 3000K LED lighting and so is my display cabinet. So for photography I chose to go to with 3000K LED lighting and then formulate my paint mixes to achieve the color I like under that lighting. Of course if I take my model outside the color will look colder but that's not how I display them in my house.

So in the end I match display and photography lighting temperatures. With LED lights you have many choices available, 3000K warm white, 4000K bright white, 6000K cool white etc.

Hope I am not imposing too much but here are a few examples of photography with my LED setup

 

[Dpate]

These are the bulbs I use in my paint booth. They are $30 per bulb, but that’s for the 100w equivalent, and 1600 lumens. 6500k 95cri 80+R9. If you wanna learn about lighting this is the place. Kelvin isn’t the only thing important with lighting. Also lot of bulbs especially at Walmart might claim there 95cri, but they’re not. Like my work bench light I have it claims 95 cri, but it’s not let alone even true 6500K. Think I paid bout $70 for it at the time, but I paid almost that for 2 bulbs lol. One day it won’t just be my paint booth that has good lighting it’ll be the whole hobby room. T8 light fixtures above the work bench etc. 

https://store.waveformlighting.com/products/centric-daylight-full-spectrum-flicker-free-a21-15w-led-bulb

Edited September 8, 2023 by Dpate

[Ace-Garageguy]

Color temperature has been a factor affecting photographers since color film was introduced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

In the dim recesses of time when I was young, old ornery past-it useless fossils like me had choices as to what film to use to compensate (film was a prehistoric chemical-OMG!!!-coated, flexible material once employed to record images), some being rated for "daylight" and others for various types of artificial illumination (incandescent, fluorescent).

I've achieved a very acceptable color balance for my workbench photography using a combination of cheap "daylight" and "warm white" 100-watt-equivalent LED bulbs (the dinosaur-era digital camera I use for most web model shots has no provision for adjusting for lighting).

It took a little experimenting to get the color balance I liked, but the leftover cheap bulbs can be employed elsewhere in the house.

As you can see, greens are green, blues are blue, reds, oranges, yellows, and whites render well too, etc., and you don't have to spend a ton of money.  

 

 

Edited September 9, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[JollySipper]

Thanks, Guys..... This is all really good info! Guess I'm on the lookout for some daylight bulbs.........

[peteski]

Yes, color temperature  plays important role i proper color rendition by cameras. But the other very important factor is Color Rendition Index (CRI) of the logth source.  Sun of course has a very high CRI. Look for lamps or light bulbs with high CRI (90 or higher).  For more details about CRI see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index

One way to improve  color quality (assuming you have high CRI light source) is manually adjusted white color  balance setting in your camera. I use it all the time when taking model photos.  Even still the camera image sensors are not perfect.  Some intense reds will not be as intense looking in a photograph.  The image sensor does not have the same dynamic range as the eye.

The other part of the equation is the computer monitors (display) when viewing the photos.  Those also do not have the dynamic range of the human eye, and often do not show colors correctly.  Professionals use very expensive equipment (cameras, monitors, and printers) with color profiles enabled for that equipment.  That guarantees the best possible color rendition, but the high-end equipment is quite pricey (usually out of reach for an average person).

[Russell C]

11 hours ago, peteski said:

... manually adjusted white color  balance setting in your camera. ... computer monitors (display) when viewing the photos. ....

The fun I sometimes have (doesn't always work easily) is digital color manipulation of color in photos, using my iMac's simple "Preview" program. Personally, I think I like  the bluer tone more.

[Pierre Rivard]

Excellent input from all. we can all learn from each other. Reading Peter's comments about CRI which now helps me understand why lighting with 5000K fluorescent vs 5000K LED does not provide the same results. LED provides better rendition of the whole spectrum of color.

My photo setup has 3000K LED but I have an adjacent window which provides additional daylight. So I guess just like Bill and his combo warm white and daylight LED bulbs I do end up with a bit of a combo. If I did not have that window I would move from a 3000k to a 4000K LED lighting.

Russel and Peter both make an excellent point that color can also be adjusted digitally. I just use my iPhone for taking pictures and it is very easy to do a bit of post processing on the spot. I usually only add a bit of contrast but color temperature can also be easily altered. Pictures below show what can be done in a matter of seconds. Warm, neutral and cold

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

This is one of those areas that doesn't really benefit from excessive overthinking. There's a lot to be said for the KISS concept.

Try a mix of light sources, post photos on the board, look at the results, decide what looks good to you, and move on.

I could be very wrong, but I seriously doubt the majority of posters here spend any time in post-processing of their photos, or even have the hardware and software and knowledge to do it.

Unless you're a professional or a very capable and involved amateur, experimenting with cheap light sources will get the job done, as my photo above pretty much proves.

PS: Though I DO have post-processing capability in my graphics suite, I almost NEVER use it for color tinkering on model shots, as it's just not necessary with the cheap and easy balanced light source I've come up with.

EDIT: When I joined the board around 10 years back, my lighting was old-fashioned incandescent, and my photos indoors were always way too warm, toward the red-yellow. My more recent indoor model work is much better, quite natural looking colors, with the same camera and settings as back then, with no other changes than the cheap mixed LED bulbs. 

The majority of photos on the board would benefit more from paying attention to focus, removing extraneous clutter from backgrounds, and better composition than worrying about color balance anyway.

Edited September 9, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[peteski]

18 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

PS: Though I DO have post-processing capability in my graphics suite, I almost NEVER use it for color tinkering on model shots, as it's just not necessary with the cheap and easy balanced light source I've come up with.

Actually nothing can be simpler nowadays.  Since many take photos using smart phones, basically the smart phone will do it for you with just a few simple swipes of a finger.  The technology has advanced quite a bit in the last decade, but I'm school, and I use old Nikon CoolPix 8700 camera and Corel Photo Paint for photo processing.

I originally addressed paying attention to the CRI because this thread is about best indoor lighting for taking model photos. Good lightning minimizes need for post-processing.

Edited September 10, 2023 by peteski

[Dpate]

https://www.waveformlighting.com/high-cri-led
 

This link explains everything CRI.