Lighting for book illustrations.

[trainer2000]

Hi
Don't know if any of this will make sense.
I want to use photographs to illustrate a first aid handbook.
I don't have access to a studio as such but do have access to a large (35' X 25') room which has 15' ceiling and floor to ceiling windows on one long wall.
The images need to be clear with a minimum of shadow rather than cleverly lit and artistic and I will probably be cutting them out to use them.
I have tried this before with mixed results but have better equipment and a bit more idea of what I want now.
With this in mind I would appreciate firstly any general suggestions on lighting, continuous/ flash etc and secondly any thoughts on an idea I have been mulling over.
I was looking at the light tents that are available for photographing small or hard to light objects and was wondering if the idea could be used on full human sized objects.
I could easily fabricate the frame with white push fit plastic piping and cover it with white material held in place with spring clips. It could then be lit from outside. I have two continuous lighting fixtures and two very cheap slave type strobe flashes that I can set off with the on camera flash. I also have a large on camera cobra flash unit.
Does the idea have any merit or should I forget it and concentrate on conventional lighting techniques.
As you can probably tell, I am not very experienced at any of this so non-technical advice would be much appreciated.

Kit is
Fuji S2 Pro
Nikon 20-300
Nikon 28-80
Sigma 18-50
Thanks in advance
Dave

 

[Garry Edwards]

Dave,

Yes, you could easily make a light tent for this, if that's the kind of lighting effect you want.

The ideal covering material is ripstop nylon (as used for softbox diffusing panels) but plain white shower curtain will work too. You'll probably need a double thickness.

If you want the lighting to be even the tent will need to be pretty large, because of the way that light falls off, the walls will need to be probably 3' or more from the edge of your subjects.

As for lighting, it will need to be flash. Continuous lights won't provide anywhere near enough lighting power for live subjects unless you use a very high ISO setting - which isn't a good idea with your camera, which doesn't perform well at high ISO settings. My guess is that you'll have enough lighting quantity (just) with your hotshoe flashes, if I'm wrong about that you'll need to get studio flash - but it's well worth trying with the hotshoe flashes.

 

[trainer2000]

Thanks Garry
looks like a trip to B&Q is on the cards.