Light for Indoor Photos

I've seen great things down with 45 or 65w regular home depot store flood lamps and light box made out type paper! You don't need a $$$ set up, just experiment and you will get there!

 

Generally more power is better since it will stay brighter when you put "stuff" in front of it (typically a diffuser). But dolls don't move, so any of them should be fine as long as you have a tripod.

 

If you're using consumer-grade lightbulbs, just remember to always look for daylight balanced bulbs, or bulbs marked as being in the Kelvin range of 4500 to 5000 degrees. (Degrees Kelvin is the standard measurement for "color" of light, aka wavelength. Most yellow-toned lightbulbs are in the 2500-3500 degree range. Ott hobby lightbulbs may claim they're daylight-balanced, but are rated at 6000 degrees Kelvin, which puts their light output decidedly on the blue end of the range. Midday sunlight, in comparison, is rated at 5000 degrees Kelvin.

 

Musume, there are also ebay sellers who sell round lightbulbs with the fluorescent innards, and many do give the Kelvin of their bulbs. The good point of the fluorescent bulbs is that you can get much brighter bulbs with much lower wattage and heat production than traditional incandescent bulbs. (I think a traditional 75 watt bulb equates to a 18-24 watt fluorescent bulb.) You have to experience the HEAT from a high wattage photography incandescent bulb to believe it!

UV shouldn't be a problem with the fluorescent bulbs as long as you keep the dolls more than a foot to 18" away from the bulbs (which is why getting a higher-equivalent wattage is better - you can put the bulbs further away, and the light spread is more even too).

 

Just to add that you don't need to go through the trouble of finding daylight bulbs if you have a custom white balance option on your camera. That will correct light of any shade and make colours true. Daylight bulbs can be expensive and difficult to find, so this is a good alternative.

 

I've had good success with 4100K GE "cool white" bulbs from the regular lightbulb aisle at Target. They're the twirly fluorescent kind, but not blue like most "daylight" bulbs are, and not yellow either... I've gotten light that looked like late afternoon out of them before.