About lighting

[T. Suominen]

As good lighting can be considered a very important tool i'm guessing this would be the right place for this topic.

I am in need to upgrade my lightin setup for bit and would like to hear little overview about your setups and more importantly about the tone of light you are using? What do you think would be better, a softer yellowish tone or a harder white tone? Maybe this is just nitpicking but i've noticed that scratces etc. pop up differently under different lights (not to mention the different looks of stain etc., of course).

What has experience taught to you?

[e Markle]

I think this current thread will be helpful to you. There are a number of other discussions you can search as well, but the short answer is you want daylight bulbs that you diffuse somehow (generally a lightbox).

[Charl]

Or do you mean your normal shoplights?

[The Smoking Yeti]

For normal shop lights, I use the same lights as I use for my lightbox. My 6500k bulbs are a lovely white light, very bright, I have a few cheap-o clip on desk lamps which do the trick.

However, it would be nice to invest a bit more and mount bar lights above my whole bench... but yeah, I always prefer bulbs closer to daylight, they help me with my staining(I see the colors as they will appear in daylight, not distorted)

Cheers!

Yeti

[e Markle]

Or do you mean your normal shoplights?

Good point; that didn't even cross my mind.

[oklahoma red]

My personal opinion is that nothing beats bright sunlight. When I want to really give everything a "no-shitter" inspection I go outside with a jeweler's loupe.
To duplicate that inside, your light source(s) what ever they may be, should be a minimum of 5500 Kelvin. That can be a bit harsh and hard on the eyes all the time so you can back off of that for general work lights but set up an inspection lamp since going outside all the time is not always practical. I envy our fellow carvers that have their work spaces in lofts or attics with big windows for natural light, just like an artist's studio.
For pics I use two strobes with white reflector dishes with diffusers stretched over them. Some like the tents but personally I find them restrictive to work in and around.
Chas.

[T. Suominen]

Yes, sorry about not being clear. i ment the normal shop lighting in this particular case, the photographic stuff is a whole different world of art so right now i'll consentrate on trying to create something worth taking photos of . Thanks for the replies. I'll propably come up with some sort of compromise of using the same light(s) for working and photo shooting (like jedi does it,... i mean yeti...) with enough softness for m' peepers. I can always use the sunlight for my benefit on sunny days with the shooting (and the ûber inspection).

Maybe in the future i'll build a greenhouse and set up my shop there... Maybe a bit cold though in wintertime with -30 degrees Celcius, but i'll bet i would be making pipes real fast ...

Thanks again.

EDIT: And that inspection lamp is real good idea, chas. Thanks.