Derrel
Mr. Rain Cloud
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2009
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- USA
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160 Watt-seconds sounds about right for the modern era in a home studio: not too, overly powerful. If your basic light unit is TOO powerful, it really hurts the ability to have other units ratio'd to it at lower outputs! If you go with 320 W-s lights, you'll often end up at 1/4 power or lower to get the right exposure at f/8, and then the less-powerful hair- or fill lights end up "running out of settings" at the low end!
Years ago, I bought a 300 Watt-sec monolight from JTL...big mistake...wayyyy too much output, all the time, ended up with it at 1/6th power or so on the dial all the time. Just not good. The JTL 300 had really warm light too at that low setting. I usually recommend that people go with 150 Watt-second units to begin with; that's about the right area for one's most-powerful light, and then other flash units can be dropped in power, often to output levels like 1/2, 1/4,1/8, and 1/16 power, and thus you have an actual, workable set of lights of staggered power levels!
You can think of it roughly as Watt-second ratings, like 160=Full; 80=1/2 Power; 40 =1/4 Power; 20 =1/8 Power, and 10=1/16 Power. This is about what most manufacturers call the "Five-stop Power Range" on their lights.
At indoor studio distances, even 10 Watt-seconds fired through a bare flash, or thru the barndoor-equipped light as a kicker or separation light, placed back behind the subject and off to one side will come in, and at a steep angle, even 10 W-s will create a crisp, bright light! or with a gel taped over it, and fired onto black., 10 to 20 Watt-seconds can create a LOT of color!
Light retailers loooooove to push 300's and 600's on people! (I normally work with 1,2,3,4, or 5 lights, at from 150 to 25 Watt-seconds). Much of the time what you really want is LESS light, since cameras are so,so good at ISO 100 to 400 under studio flash conditions.
Years ago, I bought a 300 Watt-sec monolight from JTL...big mistake...wayyyy too much output, all the time, ended up with it at 1/6th power or so on the dial all the time. Just not good. The JTL 300 had really warm light too at that low setting. I usually recommend that people go with 150 Watt-second units to begin with; that's about the right area for one's most-powerful light, and then other flash units can be dropped in power, often to output levels like 1/2, 1/4,1/8, and 1/16 power, and thus you have an actual, workable set of lights of staggered power levels!
You can think of it roughly as Watt-second ratings, like 160=Full; 80=1/2 Power; 40 =1/4 Power; 20 =1/8 Power, and 10=1/16 Power. This is about what most manufacturers call the "Five-stop Power Range" on their lights.
At indoor studio distances, even 10 Watt-seconds fired through a bare flash, or thru the barndoor-equipped light as a kicker or separation light, placed back behind the subject and off to one side will come in, and at a steep angle, even 10 W-s will create a crisp, bright light! or with a gel taped over it, and fired onto black., 10 to 20 Watt-seconds can create a LOT of color!
Light retailers loooooove to push 300's and 600's on people! (I normally work with 1,2,3,4, or 5 lights, at from 150 to 25 Watt-seconds). Much of the time what you really want is LESS light, since cameras are so,so good at ISO 100 to 400 under studio flash conditions.
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Colour Portrait
Colour Portrait
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