What lights are the best for indoor photos?

[Jadee]

 Hello,

 I have a EOS 70D Canon camera with a 70-300mm lens. I have a 18-55mm lens but the focus ring is broken.

 The subject I am taking photos of are Agates, jewelry, opals and I need to get good crystal clear details of them. I was wondering what lights work best for indoor photography that mimics daylight?

 

[Waddizzle]

You can buy video lights that mimic daylight color temperatures.  Or, you can use a grey card and shoot RAW.

[Ray-uk]

Realistically this is quite a specialist venture and this forum is probably not the best place to ask.

However I would suggest to use a light tent to ensure a soft shadow free lighting and led or halogen lights outside of it. If you need to highlight any part of the subject then you could add a small spotlight. Continuous lighting will be better than flash because it will enable you to see the result without taking a large amount of test shots.

As Wadizzle said, use raw so that you can adjust the white balance to get correct daylight colouring.

[FidoQ]

I don't shoot rocks but do a lot of food pictures in my kitchen.

I use two panel mini's from Lumecube and two panel go's, they do a great job and I mount them on my Switchpod, Jobi Gorilla pod and or tripods, not too expensive, light weight and easy to move around to get the perfect shot. 

[Waddizzle]

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@FidoQ wrote:

I don't shoot rocks but do a lot of food pictures in my kitchen.

I use two panel mini's from Lumecube and two panel go's, they do a great job and I mount them on my Switchpod, Jobi Gorilla pod and or tripods, not too expensive, light weight and easy to move around to get the perfect shot. 

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Photoshop is cheaper than camera gear.  Here is link to video that is a full blown tutorial on how to create pure white backgrounds in macro photography.  He starts small, and shows you how to get it close.  By the end of the video, every point in the background measures 255,255,255 on th RGB scale.

https://youtu.be/ehKq8hcENqM 

This guy is GOOD.

[ebiggs1]

Amazing what can be done if people would just learn some basics of Photoshop. 

[ebiggs1]

"I have a 18-55mm lens but the focus ring is broken."

You might want to repair this first! Over the years I have used many different light sources. Some as easy as a Hone Depot construction light clear up to studio track lights. Without seeing your exact situation is it impossible to tell you what will work best. How much available light there is, is going to influence this too.

[ebiggs1]

One more thing besides what light to use, placement of the light source(s) is critical too.

[mariah1902]

There are some of the ring lights available in the market you can use or you can always use professional light setups which will give you maximum brightness and product photography is much more better with these lights.