LED Panel lights for complete newb doing clothing photography?

[danton133]

Hi guys, any suggestions for cheap and cheerful LED panel light/tripod kits?

I’m photographing clothes on a mannequin and have been using a 2 light set up using just what I had to hand, which was two SAD therapy LED panels, 12watts, up to 35000 Lux, with diffuser paper (sheet of crate paper) taped over them, which were then balanced on boxes. Not an ideal setup, I know, and now one of the lights is broken after a few months use.


I don’t need anything super fancy as it just for ebay, but the lights I had been using were falling short in terms of the amount of light they produced. I had to place them really close to the subject and they didn't spread the light wide enough, so the top and bottom of the mannequin weren’t as bright as the middle.

As I'm sure you can tell I know nothing about photography but need something cheap to get started then experiment/tweak and learn along the way.

Can anyone recommend a basic LED panel with tripod?

Edit: I dont need lights with batteries

 

[steve_lyt]

Neweer do some decent one, but they may be more than you want to pay

 

[Garry Edwards]

Product lighting is all about making the product look attractive and drawing attention to its benefits.

Panel lights, which were designed for video use but which are marketed as the solution to everything, are useless because they are too small for soft light, too large for hard light, and even more importantly, they cannot be modified to change the quality of the light. Basically, they sell to people who don't know any better.

Studio flash (and knowledge) is the answer, and also has more than enough power to overwhelm ambient (existing) light.

A poor compromise, if you really don't want to use flash, is something like these https://www.lencarta.com/godox-sl-60w-cob-led-continuous-light because they can be set up and modified just like flash, and although the power is low it is much greater than panel lights

 

[RyanB]

What are you shooting with?
As said studio strobes are ideal, can easily modified and picked up pretty cheap but using them would really depend on how you are taking the shots i.e. is it a proper camera or a smart phone. If the latter the cob continuous light is probably your best bet or something similar. If the former(dedicated camera) the strobe is ideal but you would still need something to trigger the studio strobes, there are many possible solutions for that depending on the camera.

 

[Garry Edwards]

What are you shooting with?
As said studio strobes are ideal, can easily modified and picked up pretty cheap but using them would really depend on how you are taking the shots i.e. is it a proper camera or a smart phone. If the latter the cob continuous light is probably your best bet or something similar. If the former(dedicated camera) the strobe is ideal but you would still need something to trigger the studio strobes, there are many possible solutions for that depending on the camera.

Correct, I assumed that you're using a real camera, and maybe shouldn't have done that. Please see https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/get-a-white-background.756919/#post-9447402

 

[danton133]

Product lighting is all about making the product look attractive and drawing attention to its benefits.

Panel lights, which were designed for video use but which are marketed as the solution to everything, are useless because they are too small for soft light, too large for hard light, and even more importantly, they cannot be modified to change the quality of the light. Basically, they sell to people who don't know any better.

Studio flash (and knowledge) is the answer, and also has more than enough power to overwhelm ambient (existing) light.

A poor compromise, if you really don't want to use flash, is something like these https://www.lencarta.com/godox-sl-60w-cob-led-continuous-light because they can be set up and modified just like flash, and although the power is low it is much greater than panel lights

Hi Gary I see the "continuous light" you linked to which looks a bit like a big torch with a cone shaped reflector. Am I right in thinking these consist of LEDs plus tungsten bulbs for higher power or better colour (or both).

I also see, Neewar bi colour panels which seem to come in two types; one that looks like its made of many small led bulbs and one type that just looks like a white, flat piece of plastic (like the type I've already used, but mines not got tungsten).

Are you suggesting the big torch type are better than the bi-colour panels (which seem to use the same LED/tungsten combo) just because they are higher powered?

Also, the Godox lamp you suggested says its 4100 Lux and 60w, and the panel light I had been using says its 35000 lux at 12w. How is this possible? Obviously I'm missing something.

 

[danton133]

What are you shooting with?
As said studio strobes are ideal, can easily modified and picked up pretty cheap but using them would really depend on how you are taking the shots i.e. is it a proper camera or a smart phone. If the latter the cob continuous light is probably your best bet or something similar. If the former(dedicated camera) the strobe is ideal but you would still need something to trigger the studio strobes, there are many possible solutions for that depending on the camera.

Phone, I don't have the funds for a camera just yet.

 

[Garry Edwards]

The link I gave you is to a proper studio light, but which is powered by LED instead of by flash. It should produce much better colour accuracy and much more accurate colour rendition than your non-photographic lights, but still not as good as flash.

That reflector is removable, and can be replaced by a softbox, beauty dish or any number of other light shaping tools, that's its major advantage - lighting is about the quality of the light (the depth and direction of shadows) and not about the quantity of the light, although there does need to be sufficient quantity to overwhelm the ambient light, and also to allow shots to be taken at small apertures and low ISO.

Are you suggesting the big torch type are better than the bi-colour panels (which seem to use the same LED/tungsten combo) just because they are higher powered?

Far better. Also, the variable colour capability is just marketing hype, and useless for your purpose.

Also, the Godox lamp you suggested says its 4100 Lux and 60w, and the panel light I had been using says its 35000 lux at 12w. How is this possible? Obviously I'm missing something.

It isn't possible. The various expressions of power are really just nonsense, or marketing hype, or b******t. Sellers often use terminology designed to deceive, the sellers simply reproduce the nonsense claimed by the manufacturers, who often just take their figures from a competitors' website. 12 wats and 60 watts is just consumption, not output, but 60 watts is actually quite a lot and is roughly equivalent to a 600 watt tungsten light or an extremely low-powered flash

Phone, I don't have the funds for a camera just yet.

You need a camera, not a phone. The better sales from better photos will fund the camera and the lights.

 

[danton133]

The link I gave you is to a proper studio light, but which is powered by LED instead of by flash. It should produce much better colour accuracy and much more accurate colour rendition than your non-photographic lights, but still not as good as flash.

That reflector is removable, and can be replaced by a softbox, beauty dish or any number of other light shaping tools, that's its major advantage - lighting is about the quality of the light (the depth and direction of shadows) and not about the quantity of the light, although there does need to be sufficient quantity to overwhelm the ambient light, and also to allow shots to be taken at small apertures and low ISO.

Far better. Also, the variable colour capability is just marketing hype, and useless for your purpose.


It isn't possible. The various expressions of power are really just nonsense, or marketing hype, or b******t. Sellers often use terminology designed to deceive, the sellers simply reproduce the nonsense claimed by the manufacturers, who often just take their figures from a competitors' website. 12 wats and 60 watts is just consumption, not output, but 60 watts is actually quite a lot and is roughly equivalent to a 600 watt tungsten light or an extremely low-powered flash

You need a camera, not a phone. The better sales from better photos will fund the camera and the lights.

Should have mentioned I'm quite limited for space so don't think I'd have room for a soft box was hoping to just cover with a cloth or diffusion paper.

The product in the link you provided is out of stock, if I wanted to look for equivalent used options on ebay what specs should I look at? Stick to Godox? Something with similar power (60w)?

Also, could i get away with a lower powered one for the fill light?

 

[Sangoma]

and the panel light I had been using says its 35000 lux at 12w. How is this possible? Obviously I'm missing something.

It's not possible, probably the lamp you bought was made in the same country as this large carpet.


The size of the carpet? 400mmX600mm

A couple of years ago the wife was doing the same (with clothing for sale), and I had given away my studio flashes, we ended up using 6 fill in slave flashes (look like an ordinary screw in light bulb) triggered by the on camera flash. Two of them were just used to eliminate shadows on the backdrop.

Won't work with a phone of course, and won't satisfy the purists, but did the job well.

We tried 3 X 100W LED lights, but very unpleasant to work with, even with a remote on/off switch, and didn't give the desired results.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Should have mentioned I'm quite limited for space so don't think I'd have room for a soft box was hoping to just cover with a cloth or diffusion paper.

The product in the link you provided is out of stock, if I wanted to look for equivalent used options on ebay what specs should I look at? Stick to Godox? Something with similar power (60w)?

Also, could i get away with a lower powered one for the fill light?

Yes, stick with Godox, not the best but good enough and fair value for money. See this, not even softboxes are anywhere near equal, and using diffusion material as a substitute is only of some value for highly skilled lighting specialists. You need a good softbox. https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/tutorials/which-is-the-right-softbox-for-you.154/

See this too https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/tutorials/led-lights-or-flash.152/
And this https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/tutorials/photography-for-amazon-ebay.157/

And yes, the fill light can have less power.

 

[danton133]

Thanks again, I've done some reading and I also found some new SL-60W kits on Ebay. I presume these included everything required.

The options seem to vary by softbox style, and since the link provided didn't go into depth on these would you recommend?

1. Octagon beehive with grid (95cm)
2. Regular octagon (95cm)
3. Square 60cm*60cm
4. Rectangle 60cm*90cm

Rectangle seems to make the most sense for mannequins but I don't know the purpose of an octagon shape or for the grid.

Also I read on the link you provided that 90cm is the maximum recommended size so maybe 60*60 is better.

 

[Phil V]

Should have mentioned I'm quite limited for space so don't think I'd have room for a soft box was hoping to just cover with a cloth or diffusion paper.

The result of which will not alter the quality of light but will just reduce the amount, when you really need every last drop.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Thanks again, I've done some reading and I also found some new SL-60W kits on Ebay. I presume these included everything required.

The options seem to vary by softbox style, and since the link provided didn't go into depth on these would you recommend?

1. Octagon beehive with grid (95cm)
2. Regular octagon (95cm)
3. Square 60cm*60cm
4. Rectangle 60cm*90cm

Rectangle seems to make the most sense for mannequins but I don't know the purpose of an octagon shape or for the grid.

Also I read on the link you provided that 90cm is the maximum recommended size so maybe 60*60 is better.

You're not photographing mannequins, you're photographing the clothes fitted to them. Mannequins are far better than laying clothes flat, but nowhere near as good as actual, live models - so, when you're photographing clothes on a mannequin you need to make the shots look, as far as possible, that they are being worn by an attractive person - people like to kid themselves that if they buy the clothes they will look as good as the model wearing them, and mannequins don't look attractive. So, we don't show the head, which means that we don't worry about lighting the head, we just worry about lighting the clothing, and we light to show accurate colour, shade, texture and so on.

Softbox design matters a lot, the front panel MUST be recessed, the materials need to be decent quality and they mustn't leak light, which rules out of all of the cheapies. But, basically, the shape is neither here nor there, or at least for many subjects, although strip softboxes are essential for a few specialist uses. Basically, the shape determines the catchlights (reflections of the light) that appears in the eyes, but as there are no eyes in your photos it just doesn't matter.

Softbox size is relative, subjective and dependent on the required effect. If you want the light to be really soft, without clearly-defined shadows, then the light needs to be larger than the subject, it needs to be positioned very close to the subject and it needs to strike the subject at an angle that doesn't create strong directional shadows. So, a large subject will need a large softbox and a very small subject will be fine with a tiny softbox, when placed very close.

Conversely, if you want a hard light, it needs to be small and/or a long way away

Ceiling height is also a big factor, softboxes are often placed fairly high, angled downwards, because that's where natural light comes from, so it follows that a large softbox will often be too large to use inside an average house.

At a rough guess, I would say that 90cm is the largest you will be able to manage. You will definitely need a honeycomb (English for Grid) sometimes, to control the spread of light, reduce or avoid flare and accentuate shadows. But not all honeycombs are created equal, the shallow ones with lots of space between the sections are pretty useless.

 

[wiltw]

To illustrate what softbox-to-subject distance will do, I just shot this series. I set the 3"w x 11"h subject (metal bottle) deliberately close to the background, only 1' from it.
Softbox is 22"w x 30"w . Light source was Dynalite 500 w-s power supply into Dynalite 1010 head. The softbox was set at 120" (4x softbox largest dimension), then 90" (3x softbox largest dimension, then at 90" (2x softbox largest dimension). Note the softness of the penumbra (shadow edges) is fairly soft at 2x distance, and more sharply defined at 5x distance. The penumbra is not has hard edged as a small light source would have cast. (Had I moved the bottle farther from the background, the shadows would not have been as defined as I deliberately made them..."that exercise is left for the student")

 

[andrewc]

If your going to use a phone to take the pictures, you'll need continuous lights.

If you're going to use a proper camera, then studio flash becomes the preferred option - you can use continous or studio flashes.

Product photography is an art and good product photography will let you sell more things at a higher price.

 

[danton133]

To illustrate what softbox-to-subject distance will do, I just shot this series. I set the 3"w x 11"h subject (metal bottle) deliberately close to the background, only 1' from it.
Softbox is 22"w x 30"w . Light source was Dynalite 500 w-s power supply into Dynalite 1010 head. The softbox was set at 120" (4x softbox largest dimension), then 90" (3x softbox largest dimension, then at 90" (2x softbox largest dimension). Note the softness of the penumbra (shadow edges) is fairly soft at 2x distance, and more sharply defined at 5x distance. The penumbra is not has hard edged as a small light source would have cast. (Had I moved the bottle farther from the background, the shadows would not have been as defined as I deliberately made them..."that exercise is left for the student")

I see. I will likely be removing the background but will have to see what it looks like.

 

[Phil V]

I see. I will likely be removing the background but will have to see what it looks like.

I think you're missing the point of the post, shadows always exist, they're inherently part of the image - in fact the single sentence that best teaches how to light something is that 'you're not controlling the 'light' you're controlling the shadows'.

Whether you cut out from the background or not is irrelevant to that.

 

[troutfisher]

As a matter of interest what sort of prices are these items selling for, is it £s, 10,s , 100,s are we talking cheap and cheerful or preloved expensive designer gear,Matalan or Dior?
I am trying to get a handle on what the photography could cost relative to the selling price.

 

[Garry Edwards]

I think you're missing the point of the post, shadows always exist, they're inherently part of the image - in fact the single sentence that best teaches how to light something is that 'you're not controlling the 'light' you're controlling the shadows'.

Whether you cut out from the background or not is irrelevant to that.

As a matter of interest what sort of prices are these items selling for, is it £s, 10,s , 100,s are we talking cheap and cheerful or preloved expensive designer gear,Matalan or Dior?
I am trying to get a handle on what the photography could cost relative to the selling price.

Dan, I don't speak for anyone else but I think that we're all trying to be polite here, but are trying to get through to you that your ideas can't work.

And we say this because we're experienced photographers who understand the laws of physics and know what can and cannot work - but you don't seem to be listening!

Wilt W has illustrated the point I explained about the inverse square law, which is absolutely fundamental to photographic lighting (as well as to almost everything else) but your response is that you might cut out the background
Phil has pointed out that that's irrelevant.
And Chris has basically asked you whether you would be better off getting someone else to do the photography for you, as it's obvious that you're struggling,

But it doesn't matter whether you're selling cheap crap or designer clothes, because if the photos don't show them at their best then they won't sell, regardless of price, because your competitors will value photography and will have decent photos.

And, even if you do get some sales, you'll get a very high level of returns, because the photos won't illustrate the products properly, colours will be wrong, angles, perspective and tone will be wrong too, so you cannot possibly win.

Sorry if I'm being blunt and rude, but that's the truth as I see it. So, either get a real camera, some real lights, all the bits and pieces of equipment you need, and spend some time learning, posting your results here for critique and improvement, or pay someone else to do it for you.

 

[wiltw]

Unfortunately, the point of my post was NOT to illustrate the inverse square law...it was to illustrate how the relative size of the illumination source controlled the shadow edges...

• When the source is 'relatively large' it casts soft-edged shadows, and when the source is 'relatively small' it casts hard edge shadows.

We see that every day when we look outside and see the very hard edged shadows cast by the sunlight on a clear day vs. the almost-nonexistant shadows cast when the sun is occluded by overcast skies! Yet folks fail to see the similarity of principle when artificial light sources are used in place of the sun.

• Source-to-subject distance is one of the ways to control size of the source; the other is simply to USE a 'larger' source!

In the 3 shots, I used distance to alter shadow characteristic...I could have used an 11" x 15" softbox and placed it at 30" distance, and gotten a similar result to 22" x 30" softbox placed at 60", and gotten similar shadow penumbra softness.//the RELATIVE SIZE would be 'the same'! I could have done that very thing, but it was much faster and easier to move the source than to change it to a much smaller softbox (because I did not have one already set up for use)
(Yes, the degree of falloff of the illumination intensity at 30" behind the subject is less for the softbox at 60" than a for softbox at 30" because of Inverse Square law.

1. 30" behind the subject, with source at 30", is -2EV darker
2. 30" behind the subject, with source at 60", is -1.5EV darker)

The shadow itself is more contrasty at same distance behind subject when the source is closer.

Shadow characteristic is what accentuates or hides texture of a surface...so choice of artificial source has a key role in the communication to the observer about the object in the photograph...is it a coarse weave or a fine weave? Both SIZE and PLACEMENT of the source play roles in texture definition.

 

[DizMatt]

I just found this thread, and was interested in the responses.
For stills I've seen continuous lighting used well, but my preference is always strobe lighting

I have seen a well lit still using two LED panels, These were around £250 each and the flexible type, around 60-80cm each or thereabouts.
The results were great, but not complex. It was in an already well lit office and this just added in some extra pop and clarity which looked good.
I've been interested in them myself for some product videos but for stills I would always go with the strobe option.

my take would be, a nice large softbox or bounce the light off a suitable white wall, and if you want to cut out the product, either use a strobe on the background to reduce shadows there or shoot in front of a lastolite style background/illuminated box

Power and shadows/lighting are key of course, my main focus here would also be colour temperature, so that your clothes are properly represented. get a colour card to test your setup.