# Studio lighting advice - anyone ever used permanent lighting?



## mrslmr (Apr 6, 2012)

Hi everyone!
I am setting up a new studio and interested in wether anyone has ever permanently lit a studio rather than using studio lights.... 
Reason being that a. My husband is an electrician and b. there is not a lot of space for stands etc and c. I kind of like the idea of creating a permanently lit 'daylight studio' - obviously with lighting in strategic places and still the ability to control the lights individually.  
Anyone ever done/tried this? 
Thanks heaps!  Google was not my friend!!!


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## Trever1t (Apr 6, 2012)

Problem with continious light is that it's not nearly as efficient to a strobe. It would take some really outrageous bulbs to even get near a strobe's output. That and the fact that if you are 'installing' lights you lose the ability to manipulate them to your needs. 

I use portable flash heads, same as mount on camera. When I'm done I fold everything up and pack it away. No big deal.


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## tirediron (Apr 6, 2012)

*Moving to the lighting forum.*


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## tirediron (Apr 6, 2012)

I agree with Trever; if you were always shooting the same sort of product in the same sort of setting, a permanent studio works, but otherwise, it will very quickly become very restricting.  Pick up a couple of cheap old manual speedlights, and some cactus triggers and some super clamps.


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## mrslmr (Apr 6, 2012)

Sorry looks like I posted in the wrong place!!!  

Thanks for the replies, looks like I need go for studio lights then!!


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## cgipson1 (Apr 6, 2012)

mrslmr said:


> Sorry looks like I posted in the wrong place!!!
> 
> Thanks for the replies, looks like I need go for studio lights then!!



No .. you need studio flashes... monolights. The continuous lights are junk.. unless you spend some real money on them, and then they get hot, or have odd color casts.


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## kundalini (Apr 6, 2012)

I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by permanent lights.  Without the ability to adjust their positions and output easily, you will be severely limiting yourself methinks.  If you're considering continuous lighting, that is another layer of limitation to deal with.

As soon as I can clear all the crap out of my garage, I plan to use it as an ad hoc studio.  But since it is a single car garage, the width will not lend itself too well for the monolights on 13' light stands.  I am looking at designing a track system or booms with articulating arms.


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## ProblemWitField (Jan 1, 2014)

I know this is an older topic, but I am wondering if there are any suggestions for permanent lighting.  We are trying to set up a room in our hospital that has the lights fixed in place for parents to shoot pictures of their newborns with their own cameras.  We want the set up to be as straight forward as possible, so the parents can come in and put their infant in the shot and snap pictures.  We would have a few different backgrounds available and some draping, but want the "set" to be fixed to keep things from getting broke or walking off.   Any ideas would be helpful.  Thanks in advance.


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## Derrel (Jan 1, 2014)

ProblemWitField said:


> I know this is an older topic, but I am wondering if there are any suggestions for permanent lighting.  We are trying to set up a room in our hospital that has the lights fixed in place for parents to shoot pictures of their newborns with their own cameras.  We want the set up to be as straight forward as possible, so the parents can come in and put their infant in the shot and snap pictures.  We would have a few different backgrounds available and some draping, but want the "set" to be fixed to keep things from getting broke or walking off.   Any ideas would be helpful.  Thanks in advance.



Well, today, "most people" will be using their smartphone cameras for this, so a good, bright, but diffused continuous lighting source would be easiest to work with. Something "big", like say a 60 x 60 inch square frame, with a thin, white diffusion material stretched tightly across the frame, and behind that a bright light source. A frame like this is called a scrim. Lighting of this type is called scrim lighting.

Here's a Google result on "scrim lighting":  Scrim lighting - Google Search


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