Photography Lighting

[Halgar]

Hey guys, did a quick search for the thread about taking pix of your projects and such, but didn't find it. It's been a while since I've seen the topic come up and I find myself in need of some technical advice about lighting.

I've got a decent vid/still camera (Panasonic HC-V770 ) that takes surprisingly great pix under florescent lights. To date I've only needed pix for forum posts or Craigslist ads and it's more than adequate for that. What I need now is HD, copy ready, pictures. I believe my camera is up to the task, though I question adequate lighting. At my disposal is:

1 - Natural lighting, which doesn't seem to produce as good a quality as in my garage. There seems to be a lot less definition of the subject when in bright natural lighting outdoors
2 - Florescent lighting - which is what I have in my garage and what most pix to date have been taken under.
3 - LED lighting - basically incandescent bulb replacements
4 - Halogen - work lamps
5 - Incandescent bulbs - 100 to 150w bulbs.

What is the best kind of light source, and best way to create reflected or diffused light to limit object shadow?

I plan to get a large sheet of white heavy card stock to make the photo booth out of to eliminate perspective lines and background. Camera will be tripod mounted. Not sure what other info you may need, let me know.

A separate question is that I'll be needing to isolate the object from the background, in other words, make an opaque background so that the object can be placed over different backdrops. I have and use, with limited ability, Adobe Fireworks as my image editor. Anybody got an easy way to do this?

[klavy69]

I'm not gonna be much help here but are you talkin about == How To - Studio (InetRC) Style Images == ?

[Halgar]

That's what I was looking for! Thanks, my friend.

Guess this means I'll have to quit picking on you for a while, eh?

[klavy69]

Guess this means I'll have to quit picking on you for a while, eh?

absofrickenlutely not

[Halgar]

Whew! I was worried there for a minute.

Hey, you have a little something there on your shirt . . . *nose boop*

[Halgar]

I found my answer on creating opaque backgrounds, quite simple, really. Well, simple when the background is virtually one color, not so easy otherwise.