I use an overhead J Type T3 300 watt halogen lightbulb. It is extremely bright and photos turns out super bright and clear with it. Inadequate lighting is the number one cause for graininess and blurriness in photos. Remember, the more light you give to your camera, the better and more clear the quality will be. I find that the color temperature of the light doesn't matter too much, as long as the light is very bright and you set the white balance of your camera to Tungsten (or the whitest color temperature available). This will get rid of any yellow overcast as the blue overcast of the Tungsten will balance it out.
Bear in mind I still use a seven year old Kodak EasyShare C183 14MP point and shoot digital camera (a camera that you can easily get for under $20 on eBay). I also will raise the exposure compensation (artificial brightening) on the camera to around +0.5 to +0.7 depending on the item I'm photographing. Avoid using flash as it will most definitely cause your photos to look amateurish. Post processing on your computer also helps. I use Photoshop to adjust levels if I feel any photos are too dark.
For the backdrop, I use two pieces of 40" x 26" thin PVC boards (one on top resting against the wall and one on the surface) for an all white look. These are good because they can be easily wiped cleaned, durability are thick like a credit card and very flexible. I was just using foam boards from the dollar store before, but they tend to get permanently dirty and dent very easily.
@jeannicho22 wrote:You might try one... I saw one for $7.95 and that may be a good starter. I too suffer from lack of the photography gene, but I have mad skills with photo editing. I plucked one of your pictures and tried to do something with it and there was nothing I could do. Your contrast is poor which is why your photos look like they have a haze over them. Here is the pic I borrowed and I can't honestly say it is an improvement, there just isn't enough light.
Also, I'm noticing you have a horizontal banding in many of your pictures, you can especially see it in the picture I altered but it IS in many others. I'm thinking it is the camera.
In my experience, when you have horizontal banding in the picture like this, there are multiple light sources in the room with different color temperatures. I've had 3 different cameras that all exhibited this behavior when 2600K bulbs were mixed with 6500K bulbs in the same room, even though the 2600K light sources were about 10 feet away. It should help to turn on only the lights of matching color temperature.
Also, make sure the camera's white balance is adjusted correctly.
@chapeau-noir wrote:I agree with @equid0x about the problems with mixed lighting - it'll confuse the camera.
ETA: Also agree with looking for tips from Camera Jim - that's where I learned a lot of my photo tips.
Yes, also someone else mentioned not to use a flash and I agree with this. The only time I would say to use a flash would be if you have those professional flash lightposts that are synced with the camera.
Here is an example of what my pics look like. They actually seem a little dark lately as I think the cheap-o LEDs are starting to dim:
I use 3 x 6500K light sources.... 2 pointed at the subject from the front, from different directions, and another pointed generally over the subject and background(infill lighting) from above.
The backdrop is a matte plastic shower curtain from IKEA. Obviously, I need a new one! Actually, I would like to upgrade and build an actual lightbox to set on this table, but haven't found the time to do it.
