Cheap Thrills

In photography you have to know where to spend money and where to skimp. Camera and lenses? Spend the money. Lighting? Probably should spend the money but you can get creative and skimp a bit. I know a lot of photographers that can't afford lighting and generators to power the lights outside. I have been testing alternatives to professional lights and have found the some fluorescent lights put out the right color crisp white light in the 5500k to 6500k color temp. They are not perfect and don't broadcast a ton of light but in the small scale home studio it can be a cheap alternative to the studio strobe. I salvaged some ballasts and bought some bulbs for about $20 and now I have studio light that works for a portrait or for lighting the backdrop. For about $15 I bought a ring shaped fluorescent light in 5600k and wired it to have a cord that plugs in the wall. Then with some foam padded the inside of the ring to make it fit snug around the lens hood which gave me a cheap ring light. While it can be a little clumsy I didn't have to spend hundreds of dollars to achieve the same effect. You wouldn't want to show up to a paid shoot with this but for in-studio work it's great.