My setup - need some lighting advice

[JSkory]

Hi guys,

I finally received some Ikea Janso lights a couple of days ago and thought I would finally have my setup in pretty good shape. Pretty disappointed with those lights.

So I'm here to ask for some advice from all you gurus on what some of my options are.

First, let me show you what my setup looks like and what I have tried so far.

Moveable Stage
I purchased an old Bausch and Lomb compound microscope and hacksawed off the head. This gives me a stage which I can move left and right using the knobs for the microscope stage and I can move it up and down in as small as 1 micron increments using the fine focus. That part works pretty nice since I previously was using the focus knob on my microscope camera.



I built the shelf for it to attach to the table and hang a bit below it so that my microscope can swing over the top.
I also cut apart an old CD case and screwed that down in place of the metal slide holder so that it moves forward/back (left/right if the microscope were facing you).

And stealing some ideas on this forum for a specimen holder made from a ball, I first tried filling a ping pong ball with drywall paste but didn't really like that. So I bought a couple of steel balls off Amazon for $8 and using a small magnet to hold the clip in place covered it with epoxy. Works nice.



Microscope
As you can see it's similar to an AmScope stereo microscope with a camera mounted on top.



Ring Light
I have a ring light that came with the microscope with a dimming switch. Works nicely but has a lot of glare and produces "rings of light" in the reflections. I tried covering the ring with some tissue paper and also with an opaque plastic. Ok, but not great.

Battery Powered LED Light
On the right hand side of the microscope you can see a black gooseneck LED lamp with a magnetic base. Produces a fair amount of light and when covered with a couple of layers of tissue paper is able to cut down on a lot of the reflection. The problem with it is that it has two brightness levels. I am assuming it is using PWM to do this because on the low brightness setting when I take a series of pictures I will capture different light levels. And even on the high brightness setting it will sometimes start flickering after being on for a while.

DIY LED Strip Light Ring
I had some strip light LEDs laying around from some previous project in the past and decided to try and make a ring out of it so that I could place it close to the specimen. I basically taped the strip into a ring and soldered on a couple of wires and hooked them up to the power supply you can see in the left of the picture above. I then cut off the top of a plastic cup and inserted that into the ring to diffuse the light.





This actually worked pretty good. You can see the picture of the spider on the monitor in one of the earlier pictures. Very flimsy since I didn't spend any time trying to make something nice.

Ikea Janso Lights
I've got these three lights covered with pieces of a ping pong ball and positioned fairly close to the specimen. Doesn't look too bad when looking through the lenses, but when viewed with the camera (and projected on the screen) it is very dim and very red.





SUGGESTIONS ?
Any suggestions would be very welcome.

• Some other type of lights that you like?

• Should I build my own lights? If so, suggested types? (Please note that I don't want to spend hundreds on lights)

• Why are the Janso lights so popular with you guys? Do you use them for something other than main lighting?

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.

[rjlittlefield]

Why are the Janso lights so popular with you guys? Do you use them for something other than main lighting?

I often use Jansjö lights for main illumination, usually with paper for diffusion and usually with custom color balance off a white card. The ones that I have are not terribly far off my camera's "tungsten" setting, but custom color balance is always better.

Note that due to metamerism, some subjects will be seen by the camera much differently than they are by your eye. One instance that particularly impressed me is discussed and illustrated at viewtopic.php?t=37664 , third panel of images.

--Rik

[JSkory]

Hi Rik,

Thanks for that reference post. Interesting info. I was not familiar with metamerism. So when you said you had to use cross polarization to cut down on reflection did you use a filter in front of the light?

I still need a different set of lights because aside from the deep red color there just isn’t enough light to bring out details, even if I change the brightness of the photo after I take it.

[rjlittlefield]

So when you said you had to use cross polarization to cut down on reflection did you use a filter in front of the light?

Yes. There's a photo of the setup shown later in the thread, at viewtopic.php?p=234913#p234913 .

--Rik

[Macro_Cosmos]

Off-topic but what's that "skull like" thing in the third photo at the top? It's spooking me out.

As for the lighting, it's a good start. The ring light will work on some subjects. You can block out segments of the light so the subject is partially lit with a partial ring, then blend images with various segments of the ring light blocked into one, eliminating the highlight.

You'd find more success in diffusing the subject, not the lights. Ping pong balls are great, household objects such as a jelly container wrapped in tracing paper works very well too.

[Scarodactyl]

Off-topic but what's that "skull like" thing in the third photo at the top? It's spooking me out.

My art history courses suggest it is a memento mori.

That's a very neat setup! I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to mount a post of appropriate diameter to the top of the b&l base to make it an all in one unit if you ever decided to go that route.

[Troels]

Although the Ikea Jansjo lamps are not perfect many of us have used them with great results.
That made me wonder if you got the right model.
Looking at your first pictures I get the impression that you use three lamps connected to an round USB hub.

Perhaps you are not aware that the USB model of the Jansjo lamp is quite different from the table or clamp model.
The first time I ordered IKEA Jansjo lamps I though it might be convenient to have both types.

But I was very disappointed with the USB lamp. It was much dimmer and not of the same quality as the bigger Jansjos.
I soon ordered an other Jansjo (big) and have never used the USB lamp for photography.

The fact that you wrote you "just recieved" the lamps also confirmed my explanation, because the bigger non-USB lamps are no longer available from any of the common dealers. Only USB lamps are available.

[mawyatt]

You can easily modify the Jansjo LED lights as shown below and use 5000K LED COBs with higher output. If you don't want to build a custom LED controller, you could use a standard power supply like shown in your setup image but watch the Jansjo head temperature. The custom controller allows continuous "modeling" and pulsed "strobe" LED use, so both methods are covered and easier to manage LED head temperature.

https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... lit=jansjo

Best,

[rjlittlefield]

Troels, good catch!

The Jansjö lamps that I use are the old ones that are AC powered. I have no experience with the USB versions.

--Rik

[viktor j nilsson]

The IKEA Jansjö has been replaced with a model called Nävlinge. It's speced as being brighter, but I haven't tested it myself.

[Troels]

Viktor,
I have seen the advertising for the Nävlinge lamp. It is not an exact replacement.
It gives probably a better light, but comes with one disadvantage: Only the upper half of the stand is a flexible goose-neck. The lower half is just a stick. It might be more difficult to fit into a setting where the object is placed in a low position on a table.

Long goose-necks are nice.

[viktor j nilsson]

Viktor,
I have seen the advertising for the Nävlinge lamp. It is not an exact replacement.
It gives probably a better light, but comes with one disadvantage: Only the upper half of the stand is a flexible goose-neck. The lower half is just a stick. It might be more difficult to fit into a setting where the object is placed in a low position on a table.

Long goose-necks are nice.

Yes, true. I did not mean to say that it was a direct replacement for our needs - just that IKEA started selling it around the same time that they discontinued the Jansjö.

[JSkory]

Thanks for all the responses so far. Troels, thank you for pointing out the difference in Jansjo lights from the past and present. This explains a lot. I just looked up the specs to both the Nävlinge lamp and the Jansjo USB light - 200 lumens vs 20. No wonder I'm not getting any light on the subject, lol.

Any suggestions for other lights I could try? Buy a bright LED flashlight and convert it to DC power instead of battery? Some other goosenecks you have had luck with? A particular COB LED and heatsink combo you like that is maybe just held in place with a gooseneck clamp?

Macro_Cosmos - the creepy "skull like" thing is a ceramic skull sitting on top of a book. I believe I picked this up in a gift shop when I was young and my Dad took me on a trip to Italy and we visited some catecombs. Probably around 1972 or so.
I will play around with taking pictures with the diffuser in front of a light vs in front of the subject with the light set back a little to get a better idea of how it changes the lighting. Thanks for the suggestion.

Mike - I may buys some COBs and heatsinks and experiment with converting one of the USB lamps or just creating new ones. Sounds like it could make for some fun experimentation.

Jeff

[joshmacro]

Any suggestions for other lights I could try? Buy a bright LED flashlight and convert it to DC power instead of battery? Some other goosenecks you have had luck with? A particular COB LED and heatsink combo you like that is maybe just held in place with a gooseneck clamp?

You can still buy the older AC-powered Jansjö on ebay. I just bought one.

[Scarodactyl]

You can always get a 150w halogen light source with gooseneck light guides.