photography Indoor lighting question

Hello everyone,

I've been wondering how to improve lighting when taking indoor photos of your dolls.

My room only has spot lighting, so all of the light is mainly shining downwards creating very unnatural looking light when I don't have light shining in through my window.
I was looking into improving my lighting, and I was wondering if something like a ring-light would be enough?

Does anyone have any experience to share perhaps?

My experience:

I used to lit my room pointing a 1000W halogen spotlight (from the 70s...) to the ceiling so that the light bouncing off the ceiling becomes softer.

Also use some white panel to direct some light from below sometime.

After 3 spotlights have burned out (those bulbs are no longer found), I switched to LED, and bought this:

 

https://www.amazon.it/Neewer-Bicolore-3200-5600K-Registrazioni-Dimmerabile/dp/B07G9WQM66?pd_rd_w=ZDBtp&pf_rd_p=4f54cd32-d726-44e2-9065-40f101d3010b&pf_rd_r=53EG8WMKZGFR20HXD2P2&pd_rd_r=e1ad7a2d-2cbf-4e1f-9bc8-8a7fe8d708a4&pd_rd_wg=bYDtR&pd_rd_i=B07G9WQM66&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_d_rp_2_i

 

It's not as bright as my older spotlight, but it's good enough and instead of using ISO 100, sometime I go for ISO 200.

For darker photos I use 2 RGB bulbs too, but they're weak.

If we're talking about photos and not videos, your best investment is probably a decent flash. - One that you can point in different directions (to bounce the light off walls and the ceiling) and maybe even use off camera. Of course, a flash takes some learning and experimentation to use optimally, but in the end might fulfill nearly all of your lighting needs without needing any additional equipment. (That's how it worked for me, at least...)

 

A ring-light only has two specific traits:

1) You can shoot through the ring-light, giving a uniform frontal illumination. This flattens the contours of the face and tends to give a more flattering look to human (or influencer) faces. Dolls usually don't have any skin problems, so they don't suffer if the illumination isn't perfectly frontal. - In fact, the depth you get with an off-center illumination often is more interesting anyways.

2) You get these circular reflections of the ring light in the doll eyes.

So unless you really want to make use of one of these traits, even a simple LED-panel will probably give you more bang (or lumen) for your buck , compared to a ring-light.

Thank you both for your replies.

So if I understand correctly, what you're both suggesting is indirect lighting albeit in a different way (flash vs dedicated spotlight)?

I'm mainly looking to make my photos look a bit more natural when I don't have any natural light (e.g.: in the evening or at night), and not necessarily studio-like.

17 minutes ago, ChrisFhey said:

what you're both suggesting is indirect lighting albeit in a different way

Basically, yes! Bouncing light down from the room ceiling tends to give a fairly soft (but natural overhead) lighting effect. As the ceiling itself acts as the diffusor, you don't need any additional huge diffusor screens or reflector umbrellas.

The light source itself is basically up to your taste - as long as it's decently bright.

A spotlight is more of a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach, meaning fewer adjustments to camera settings and fewer test shots, whereas a flash is more energy efficient and portable. Both can also come in handy in fairly different other situations,

If you dont have the spare funds to get more proper lighting, you can also use house lights. I've used 2 Ikea desk lamps before, with and without lamp shades depending on the level of light I needed. 2 light sources eliminates most shadow issues.

And to mimic the range LEDs provide (i.e.: white balance, cool with incandescent and warm with sunlight, etc) you can get colour adjustable LED bulbs these days.

I'm picking up 2 tall Ikea floor lamps today actually, they're $9 CAD on clearance. I need some tall ones so I can place them on the floor to avoid using limited desk space for shoots.

https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/barlast-floor-lamp-black-white-70437814/

I take pictures of food indoors, so there are some parallels. When natural lighting isn't available, I use a DIY lighting setup I made out of parts from Home Depot. It cost $30.

For a simple setup, you want a soft, diffuse lighting coming from one side, something to reflect the light back to fill in the shadows on the opposite side. The bulb should be neutral/daylight in color.

I can't post links yet, but there are lots of tutorials on how to build this. In short, you need to build the light and get a foldable posterboard to fill in the shadows. The rest of the scene is up to you.

(I found this online to help you visualize this better. This is how you'd set up a scene for this sort of setup, minus the "diorama" stuff in the middle.)

(And this is roughly how you'd build the light.)

Those are some interesting ideas I'll consider looking into. Perhaps I'd be better off trying the DIY solutions first before investing in more expensive solutions.

Thank you for the input and ideas so far, everyone!

2 hours ago, Veravey said:

2 light sources eliminates most shadow issues

Two light sources, as in one on each side I assume?

Edited November 15, 2021 by ChrisFhey

I use a janky setup, but I'd say it's relatively cheap and easy. And more portable than a diorama setup if that's something you need. I use one of these clip plant lights, you can find a ton of them by searching "led plant light with clip" or similar.

 

I have one that cycles between bluish white, yellow, and orange, with various levels of brightness that you can set. I would definitely say the 4 arms that mine has is excessive. They seem to sell them in 2-3 arm setups and I think 2 would take care of most lighting. With winter here, I basically have only overhead light all season, and I've found these lights to be decently helpful. The clip is a bit annoying though if you don't have something stable in mind to clip it to ahead of time. I usually end up holding the light with one hand and taking pictures with the other...lol. I see they have tripod stands for them now too, and I'd probably really consider those if this is something you go with. One big plus I like about this light is that you can bend and twist it to point pretty much any way you need it to.

Example, this is a picture I took with the light stand on white light mode and the yellow-ish ceiling light in the room on:

I'm still new at this myself, so the background is still too dark because I didn't frame my shot correctly lol. So please excuse that part. Hope you find a solution that works best for you!

2 hours ago, ChrisFhey said:

Two light sources, as in one on each side I assume?

Yup, exactly. Like this:

 

A backlight is optional; it helps if your subject isn't working well with the background. For example, if it's too dark and it's causing the subject to contrast too much, or if it's distracting, etc. Sometes dark backgrounds look unnatural to the human eye and make the photo feel "off".

In this case, the two front lights serve different purposes (key and fill) but starting out, two of the same light is fine.

When I shot in the past, I had my 2 desk lights about 2 feet apart with my camera between them, since dolls and figures are a much smaller scale.

And to clarify earlier, you can choose to use a lamp shade or not. Diffused light (with a shade) will create shoft shadows, and direct light (no shade) will create hard shadows. Sometimes you want hard shadows for dynamic or striking photos.

All right, thank you for clarifying. :3

I'll see if I can work with some regular room lights. I was planning a trip to Ikea very soon anyway. 😄

Again, thank you all for your suggestions!

I have a 60x60x60cm popup photo studio I bought from Amazon. It has a top ringlight with a number of different colours. It's great for taking photos like that of Iori below. Note that if you have an eBay or etsy business then this photo studio is brilliant for that. The photo of the tsundere princess was taken on a regular cameraphone.

I should just mention the studio's a little on the small size for DD, although MDD are a better fit.

The other thing I have is a trio of Smallrig mini-studio lights. These are truly fantastic if you want to set up a mini Hollywood in your home. Here's Kizuna AI filming some sort of film noir detective story.