You Light up my life or Placement of lights for shelf layout

[dmiller]

I am building a 2 foot deep mostly shelf layout. I built a valance. I would like to place the 2 bulb florescent lights in the best location. (easier to do now then when the layout is underneath.... I placed the lights about 16 inches from wall. please watch video I quickly did (about 3 minutes long) .. I am thinking to maybe cut an angle block from a 3 x 2 and place the lights at a 30 to 40 degree angle into the scene.
Right now the lights are straight down with no shadows.

Should I take several hours and relocate the lights or are they best in their present location.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rPMjZBO4T8


Note: the bulbs I have in there now are old ones and not near as bright as what I will get.

Thank you for your opinions and help!

David Miller -Hagerstown MD

 

[number9]

Those lights are made for maximum dispersion (they are already angled). To catch a shadow, you would need to really point it at the wall. I saw a layout the other day (in person) that had used an LED strip. I think 16' was like $10. The person noted that you can get wide dispersion and narrow dispersion. If you were to mount that on a 1" wide stip of pine or something it would be really easy to turn it and get "directional" lighting with some not so wide angle LED stips. The newer LED strips come in bright white that look like those lights you have.

Just a thought.

 

[gregc]

Tony Koester discusses lighting in depth in his book Designing and Building Multi-Deck Model Railroads.

 

[Epimetheus]

Fluorescent 2-tube lamps will provide great working light with no shadows. I would not take them down until most of the detail work is done.

What lighting effect did you want to match?

It is not fair to compare layout ambient lighting to the effects achieved in photos. The photos are often set up with specific lighting, structures are removed to get the lights in just the perfect location and so on. When the photo shoot is over, everything is put back into place and the railroad mogul works under his fluorescent lights.