I will be creating 1/12 scale dioramas for a project (interiors of houses) and am looking for affordable (under £200) options for lighting them. The models will be photographed indoors and almost of the light will be directed through the model’s windows with a little fill in as well. I have been looking at some of the continuous LED options for this - Lume Cube, Aperture MC and Hobolite Mini - and would appreciate any input from anyone with experience here? TIA
Continuous lighting for diorama photography
- Thread starter camairish
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I trust that the lighting gurus will chime in with advice but (and stating the obvious
) with Christmas going on.......be patient in case replies are slower than normal 
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- Phil
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I’d not heard of any of those brands, so went for a look.
They all appear to be trendy looking over priced low power lights.
Feel free to spend your money how you want, but your £200 budget isn’t going to get you far with those brands. You say you want 2 lights and all of those brands would get you one.
A couple of torches, some tracing paper and some black card will fulfil your aim within budget as well as any of those products.
Alternatively a couple of cheap led panels will be ‘better’ and a couple of cheap manual speedlights with a trigger would be better still.
And Merry Christmas
They all appear to be trendy looking over priced low power lights.
Feel free to spend your money how you want, but your £200 budget isn’t going to get you far with those brands. You say you want 2 lights and all of those brands would get you one.
A couple of torches, some tracing paper and some black card will fulfil your aim within budget as well as any of those products.
Alternatively a couple of cheap led panels will be ‘better’ and a couple of cheap manual speedlights with a trigger would be better still.
And Merry Christmas
Hi Phil, valuable input thanks, will avoid those. An LED panel sounds like the way to go (I have an older light to use as well so only looking for one). What power would you suggest as a minimum for my purposes? If poss will try to get one with variable brightness/temperature but it’s the power that I’m not sure of.
Merry Xmas to you too
Merry Xmas to you too
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- Martin
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I have a Fenix torch for general use but it is often employed as a light for my photography as it is switchable from quite dim to retina-burning brightness. As Phil says, for lighting such things as you require a couple of good torches will be fine and you can get two for your less than your £200.
Fenix example
Fenix example
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You’re shooting still subjects, so you don’t need a lot of power at all, so long as you have a tripod you can have as long an exposure as is required.
Much more importantly if you’re shooting with LEDs, is to use 2 of the same, particularly cheap ones, as 2 different ones can have wildly different colours, and they don’t have the full colour spectrum so there’s a massive variation possible.
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The cheap L.e.d strips that you can get in the likes of b&m or the range etc should do just look for the ones that have the small hand multi controller with them as they have variable power levels , I believe they can be cut down to size as well …
You might also try looking at model shops as they specialise in model lighting
You might also try looking at model shops as they specialise in model lighting