Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone I am building a light box that is going to be a 3ft cube, I was just wondering what would be the best type of lights to use? I plan on using at least 6 domes, to light it up. I was lights to will bring out the true colors of the animals.
I will also be shooting with a canon T2i.
Thanks for the help
Tom

I would find compact fluorescent bulbs that have a color temperature near that of daylight (not necessarily "daylight" bulbs). You want a bulb with a color temperature of somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 K. These numbers are usually on the back of the bulb's packaging somewhere.

Compact fluorescents are better than other bulbs because you get a lot of light without a lot of heat (which is a problem with herps).

Also, make sure your boxes are pure white, not some off white color which would affect the visible color.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Ok thank you, I bought a few of each and some different watts, my question is can I mix lights? Like use some 5000k bulbs with some 6500k bulbs without effecting the photos to badly?

Thanks for the help
Tom
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Ball Pythons
1.0 Poss. het albino (Angel)
0.1 Albino (Corona)
Morelia
0.1 Jungle Carpet Python (Sage)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Unknown)
Corns
0.1 Snow (Roxy)
Bearded Dragons
0.1 Blood X Red/Citrus (Coral)
Terrapins
1.0 Diamond Back Terrapin (Crush)

The problem will be that each of those bulbs would leave a different color cast on the photo. That might make getting the color balance tricky.

Chris
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas