Hair and background lights

fotogenik · Mar 1, 2006

Trying to figure out what I need for hair and background lights for my in home studio I am setting up.

I have 2 alienbee B800's for main and fill lights but am totally lost about what to use for background and hair lighting for when I am doing potraits and such.

I don't think I wanna spend 250 bucks on each of these two lights for something that contributes very little overall light to the image but yet is so important for good photographs (IMHO)

What can a person use for this? I thought about using my SB600 on a stand but then I would have a wire running through my photo's from the camera to the background flash (sb600 canot be wirelessly tripped by the strobes from the alienbees)

Thought about shop lights but I am concerned about the color difference between the shop lights and the alienbees throwing off the pictures.

I saw a pic from a friend on deviantart and he sed the way he acheived the background color was through the use of a red gel on a background light with a black background. I want to be able to do things like that.

Any suggestions?

df3photo · Mar 1, 2006

Thats a good question... did you look on ebay or anything like that for a strobe? howbout using a on camera flash (speedlight etc.), on a lightstand with a slave plugged into it? that should be the same color temp as the other strobes...

fotogenik · Mar 1, 2006

Where do I find a wire to run from camera to flash without the wire being in my pic? I have an sc-17 to get the flash off camera but a hair light needs to be behind the subject in order to light the hair and that puts a wire through my photograph.

df3photo · Mar 2, 2006

Im not sure what kind of plug that has on it... I know back in school we used to plug in cheapo extention cords into out pc cables to extend them. but I think you can buy a slave for under $50 or so at a camera shop, that plugs into your flash and when your strobes go off Its light sensor picks that up and goes off at the same time. thats the way I would go. then you dont have any cables laying around.
heres alink to a bunch of them at b&h, so you can see what Im talking about. You would just find one that fits your flash unit.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=breadCrumb&A=search&Q=&ci=8008

I hope that helps you alittle.

fotogenik · Mar 2, 2006

THe only plug I see on my sb600 is the hotshoe plug on the bottom

Looks like this Link may be the only thing that would be compatible with an sb600.

df3photo · Mar 2, 2006

Looks like that one would work, but I belive this one should also.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...363&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation
the holes are sometime small and over looked, but that hotshoe one should work fine, the slaves just read the light change and flip a switch making contact for your flash to pop. Sometimes it can be hard to locate. So with that in mind and the fact that Im bored... I made up this quick picture of my Vivitar 285 (which by the way is a great flash to use and learn on and is usually pretty cheap to buy, for a good flash) pointing out the plug for it. Actually now that I look at it I belive it has 2 plugs for that use... including the large one to the left of the arrow...

But the ones for the hotshoe should work out fine.

fotogenik · Mar 2, 2006

did a quick inspection and my sb600 does not have any holes such as that on it, but your link does look like it will work. Thanks for finding what I overlooked.