For the last year or so, I've been working on my food photography, practicing, collecting tools, and getting lots of great advice from beautiful photographers, but the only pictures that came out really stunning were those taken in the light of day. As I spend most of my day running after my kids, I ended up with a lot of food pics with a yellow glow.
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| Nothing looks good bathed in the angry yellow glow of my kitchen at night. |
One night I tweeted that I was seriously considering buying a $100 Ego light and Marc from No Recipes chimed in to save me money and give me great advice. "All you need is a daylight bulb," he said, "it's what I use." Have you seen
Marc's work? His photography is so filled with light, you would never know that he takes most of his shots at night because of his day job. I rushed to Amazon to get my hands on one of these magical bulbs.
This week, for the bargain price of $9, I found something that gives me gorgeous daylight long after the kids have gone to bed.
My secret weapon is nothing more fancy than a lightbulb, a massive phallic-looking thing that magically fits in the socket of a cheapo Ikea desk lamp. It's
an Alzo 85 Watt CFL full-spectrum lightbulb
. There are a few different brands of these daylight CFL bulbs and the key is to look for a high Kelvin number with a regular sized socket and a reasonable price. This particular bulb emits 5500 Kelvin of light, but some bulbs go as high as 10,000 Kelvin.
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| This squash finally gets its time to shine thanks to my new daylight bulb! |
It's like magic. One minute, you have this ridiculous looking contraption, and the next minute, once you flip the switch, everything in the bulb's vicinity is bathed in a gorgeous soothing white. They sell these bulbs for depression therapy as well and I totally see why. The world is more beautiful in pure daylight.
11 comments:
Yes, I most definitely spoiled being able to take outdoor pics most of the time. When I occasionally have to shoot indoors, its not a pretty sight. I have a lot of daylight CFLs in the house, but no room to snap a pic under them. Maybe I'll try picking up a portable lamp to get some better, more true colors! Thanks! :>
Wow, that's brilliant. I have had the same challenge as you - I've been blogging for a few months and am DESPERATE FOR beautiful photos. I actually just bought the Lowel Ego light and it's MAGIC. Wish I had seen this post before! :( Maybe I will add another light to my collection, though. It'd be nice to have two lights - one on each side.
What an amazing difference! Thanks for the tip - I'm definitely adding a daylight bulb to my list! :)
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Wow. I didn't even now such thing.
Thanks for sharing. Definitely a big difference!
This was soooooo helpful as most of the time I finish cooking late which doesn't leave alot of time for photography in daylight. I just have a cannon 5.0 so many challenges to overcome. What do you use?
I LOVE THIS! Such an inexpensive solution - plus hubby feels he suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder so I can take pics of the food while I cook and before I serve, then just turn the lamp on him during dinner. Kills two birds with one stone! Awesome!
I need one of these! My apartment's fixtures are nasty fluorescent lights and they're really heavy on the yellow color value. It makes it tough to shoot for my blog after work. Such a great shot of your squash, I love the angle. What are you going to make with it?
So glad you tweeted me this link! I love this idea and never knew such a bulb existed. Thanks for sharing, it's on my list!
@Susan, to keep from getting frustrated because of my slow, slow food photography progress, I try to think of it as a lifelong hobby. By the time I'm old and gray, I might get the hang of that beautifully blurred background!
I use a Nikon D90 and I just started using a fixed 50MM lens. It's manual though, and in a few months I'm going to treat myself to a more expensive 50MM that has automatic focus.
@HeatherSF I have a fairly serious squash addiction. I always have some maple syrup roasted squash in the fridge in the winter to make soup, risotto, or just serve as is. It's a challenge to keep all my blog recipes from not being squash related. Maybe I should start a niche blog on squash!
I replaced the bulbs in my kitchen ceiling so half of them are daylight, they have the type that are covered over and look like my other ones. It really helps, and when my brain is working I have two standing lamps like that desk type that I grab and then they photos looks great, sometimes I'm in such a hurry, I forget them, oh if I could just stop tripping over all the lights I'd leave them in the kitchen all the time :)
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