Soft, dim white light?

[Sausage]

I'm trying to create a dimly-lit still life. The idea is to have a black background, with the dimly-lit subject fading into darkness into its periphery.

So far, what I've thought of is using tungsten bulb lights, since their brightness is dimmable. However, I want a white, rather than yellow cast. I have only seen white fluorescent bulbs, and I really don't think thse are dimmable.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do?

 

[Bluestrike]

Photoshop

 

[CYRN]

fluorescent are dimmable...need some special ballast. But I don't think they are white though.

 

[Larry]

use a reflector or soft box?

 

[mpenza]

how about cheating? setting a custom white balance under tungsten light could get you a "white cast".

 

[CYRN]

wouldn't that cause the subject to be unusally blue?

 

[Darren]

You can get "white" incandescent bulbs - they are dark blue in color (blue filters out the yellow, thus giving white)

Easiest way to get white with incandescent bulbs is to set a custom white balance with a reading off a white or 18% grey card.

 

[Sausage]

I thought of using Philips Ecotone Cool Daylight tubes. They're 6500k and look very white in my fish tank, but I have no idea where to get those special ballasts.

 

[StreetShooter]

Originally posted by Sausage
I'm trying to create a dimly-lit still life. The idea is to have a black background, with the dimly-lit subject fading into darkness into its periphery.

So far, what I've thought of is using tungsten bulb lights, since their brightness is dimmable. However, I want a white, rather than yellow cast. I have only seen white fluorescent bulbs, and I really don't think thse are dimmable.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do?

Use a flash. As high power as possible. The foreground will be properly exposed, and the background will be black, due to light fall-off. And it will be white light.

 

[skf]

Originally posted by Darren
You can get "white" incandescent bulbs - they are dark blue in color (blue filters out the yellow, thus giving white)
...

if you buy these bulbs, make sure you buy the proper porcelain bulb holders to go along with them and be very careful when you use them. These bulbs are extremely (burning) hot after a (very) short while of use...

 

[ckiang]

Use a flash with manual controls and a softbox. You can then adjust the flash output to your needs, get the soft light, and it's white. Better still, use a studio strobe with softbox if you have access to one.

Regards
CK