First attempt at Self-Portrait looky looky :)

[eravedesigns]

i dont know who this "unibomber" fellow you speak of is... ;-)
people like you are the REASON professional equipment exists though. People got sick of using what they had lying around so they invented specialized tools for each task that did them more efficiently and sometimes better than things they had around the house. I'm not saying what i do is BETTER, i'm saying its just a lot cheaper, and that you dont need to go drop 50 dollars every time you want your background to be a different color (although you can, nobody's stopping you) . I didnt say i did a picture LIKE yours with my stuff, i said it was as good as "you'd" (meaning everyone, not just you personally) get with pro equipment. the photo was from my fruitography project i did a while back-
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a296/shorty6049/tastyorange-1.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a296/shorty6049/DSCF0143.jpg

by the way. why arent you online anymore???

You still dont have any control over the intensity of the light...well if you built some kind of variable resistor you could but Im pretty sure you dont have that. Professional equipment allows you to not only have the control you may need to adjust the intensity of light but also if you are using more than 1 light you can have control over ratios. Yes you may be able to pull off a studio like shot but in my opinion your orange has to harsh of a shadow which if you had more control over your light would have helped decrese that (or you could have been aiming for that harsh shadow).

 

[eravedesigns]

It really depends on what type of shot you are tryign to get and the quality of shot you want. I have professional equipment because I want to eventually get the best shots I can and have them the most professional I can. I have no idea how we went from paper color to lights but besides all of that as long as your happy with your end result and peopels opinions of it agree that its a professional image it shouldnt matter.

 

[shorty6049]

thats what i'm sayin yo!

 

[Alpha]

You still dont have any control over the intensity of the light...

Of course he does. Modifiers do exactly the same thing to continuous light that they do to strobe light. In this case, aiming the light through a scrim or some other diffusion modifier would work perfectly fine to soften the intensity. No, it's not as easily variable as adjusting the power output of the light, but in principle it accomplishes the same thing.

 

[eravedesigns]

Of course he does. Modifiers do exactly the same thing to continuous light that they do to strobe light. In this case, aiming the light through a scrim or some other diffusion modifier would work perfectly fine to soften the intensity. No, it's not as easily variable as adjusting the power output of the light, but in principle it accomplishes the same thing.

Im talking percisly like variable...plus a diffuser would just soften the light and dim it instead of being able to just dim the light without softening it with more professional equipment.