Lighting for copy photography

The question of modeling lights with strobes was nicely solved in a
ringlight for photomicrography that we used in the Freer Technical
Laboratory.  This had a circuit which would fire the strobe at low
power and about 30 times a second.  It looked as if it was on
continuously.  The strobe tube itself was a modeling light.  In
photomicrography, where the size and location of the light are
critical, it worked beautifully.  I believe, although I'm not near
my catalogs, that Sinar has some strobe units with this feature.
They would probably be expensive, but so would building one.

Another solution that hasn't been mentioned is a very old one thing
I learned from Sheldon Keck and David Eisendrath many years ago.
This is to set up switched outlets for your tungsten lights so that
the lights are in series until you want to photograph, at which
point they can be switched to parallel.  The series setting runs the
lights at half the line voltage, so they are dim and adequate for
modeling.  It saves heat and light exposure to the object and also
prolongs the bulb life.  I have a setup at home to do this for
object photography, on loan from a local photographer, Robert
Schaefer.  It works outstandingly well!  If anyone is interested,
please let me know and I can do a circuit diagram.  It's easy to
cobble one together with parts from the hardware store.

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:83
                  Distributed: Friday, April 30, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-12-83-001
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