Question about lighting. Need suggestions for a cheap setup

[Arkitech]

I notice a lot of times when I take pictures of certain things I don't always get the true color in the photo. Is there a way I can get right tone and color without having to do post processing? I'm assuming my colors are probably off due to the colors of my current lighting.

Don't laugh but currently I'm just using a clamp light with a fluorescent bulb. It's fine for pictures when I'm not concerned about exact color. But in other cases when I want the true color tone of an object I don't always get consistent results. I was wondering if I added a second clamp light would that make a difference. Or perhaps I just need another type of bulb, I'm assuming that fluorescent probably does'nt put out pure white light.

 

[slashbinslashbash]

"Pure white" light doesn't exist. "White" can be defined anywhere along the blackbody radiation line, measured in Kelvins. (And sources such as flourescents don't put out a full spectrum, just a few parts of the spectrum which, when combined, approximate a given color of "white light".) Usually most people's agreement on where "white" is lies from about 4000K (yellower) to about 6500K (bluer), with "pure white" lying somewhere around 5500K-6000K.

When it comes to photography, your camera probably has a "white balance" setting that can be changed to reflect the light source. You should be able to find it in the settings. You may be able to change it directly to a given K, or you might have choices like "Incandescent", "Flourescent", "Daylight", "Tungsten", etc.

Even better, you can change the white balance of photos in post-processing. Any mildly complex photo organization/editing software will do this; iPhoto, Picasa, any kind of Photoshop, etc. If you have a Mac, I recommend iPhoto; if you have a Windows PC, I recommend Picasa, although there are numerous alternatives for both. Just look for a "white balance" or "color temperature" setting which usually shows up as a slider. You can move the slider up and down to see the effect and get your colors to look as true to life as possible.

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

EDIT: If you are getting truly inconsistent results from shot to shot with a flourescent bulb, this is probably due to the inconsistent nature of flourescent lights themselves. Most flourescents actually flicker at 60Hz in time with the alternating current of household electricity. If you are using a reasonably fast shutter speed (faster than 1/60th of a second) then you might "catch" the light at a dark point in its cycle at the instant when you take the photo. I would recommend trying for longer shutter speeds if this is what you're experiencing.

 

[Arkitech]

Thanks very helpful Slash.


I'm using a cheap point and shoot camera for now, but I think I do have white balance control in the menu settings. Tomorrow when I have a little more time, I'll play around with those controls and see if I can get truer representations of the colors I'm shooting.