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Doll Photography Lighting Questions - What light kit is best?

Jun 30, 2017

    1. I am looking into lighting kits on places like eBay and Amazon for taking better pictures of my dolls and my stuff I'm making to sell for dolls, and I am not sure what would be the best direction to go for a lighting kit? I really can't afford to spend much more than 100 on a setup (I can make my own light box) but I didn't know if any of the like 70 dollar kits were any good? I am also not sure if lights on stands with a built in soft box would be better, or a table top light box with table top lights? I also am confused by wattage, I don't know what wattage to look for in a kit. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
       
    2. I don't think that there is a "best"!
      You might share some of what you're looking at and we can
      offer our opinion on them.
      Personally I dislike CFLs because both color balance and
      brightness shift for the first 10 minutes or so after you
      turn them on. My personal preference is LED lights.
      My primary lights are LED panels.
      Wattage is almost meaningless as a measure of light
      intensity. A 10 watt LED, a 33 watt CFL and a 100 watt
      incandescent might be reasonably comparable. Your
      wattage and your light output will assuredly vary.
      As will your color balance.
      If you get more than one light, and I would recommend that,
      get similar ones so the coloration of those lights is at least
      similar. Else your color will be ugly.
      Light kits are sold for photographing people. Dolls are smaller.
      You don't need nearly as large light sources for a doll as you
      do for a person and you can work with the lights closer; therefore
      they also don't need to be as bright.
       
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