bit of advice / help needed with lighting

forbairt

Hi guys,

I've a little bridge camera (panasonic lumix fz-28) and very happy with it no immediate plans to change / go the dSLR route.

I'm enjoying taking close up shots at the moment and decided I wanted to make myself a little macro studio type thing with some decent lighting and white background / no shadows and what not.

To that end I was going to go down the route of http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html and then I realised the cat will end up tearing it to shreds so I ended up buying a little light tent for about 20 quid with a few different colours on ebay last night. (something like http://cgi.ebay.com/32-PHOTO-LIGHT-TENT-STUDIO-SOFT-BOX-CUBE-80CM-PICTURE-/350434319345?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5197835bf1 )

Now gets into where I'm completely out of my depth how do I go about lighting the bloody thing

I was playing around last night with the normal house lights I have and seeing that they tend to give a yellow glow to things.

Can someone recommend what I should do / get? I don't exactly have a budget on this as it's purely for fun so 50 or 60 quid would be ok.

Someone recommended something like http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronic-Speedlight-Speedlite-flashgun-Olympus/dp/B0031YBKA6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296377942&sr=8-1 but I'm not entirely sure if that could be setup just to provide light for 10 - 20 seconds and fixed onto a tripod or something ? (or how would I go about having it light when I want to shoot with my little bridge camera)

Thanks for any advice / help
James

PCPhoto

can you just adjust the "colour cast" caused by the lighting by using RAW and post processing.... or custom white balance ?

might be the cheapest option with regards to "fixing" the problem.

ThOnda

The yellow glow is caused by setting of your white balance. You have to tell your camera what light source you are using, or calibrate manually by taking picture of a gray or white surface. Or shoot raw, as suggested above.
So, manual, camera controls and give it a go

forbairt

Thanks guys ... finding settings in there (actually a whole different menu system I've not seen before)

Any recommendations on a way to light my tent? (that sounds rude for some reason)

Maybe I'll just figure it out when it arrives and standard lights will be ok with it

OldGoat

Each subject/object you photograph will need to be lit differently. A piece of glass will light differently to a bit of silverware or an item of clothing - and woe-betide when you get all three in the same shot.
Heres a link to a couple of sites I find useful for getting basic set up's. They are both trying to sell you their particular tabletop product kit but the info contained in them is of great use.
http://www.tabletopstudio.com/clothing_photography.html
http://www.shortcourses.com/tabletop/lighting1-1.html