Beginner looking for lighting

[denawayne]

First off, I am completely novice and I don't know much about lighting. I have had my D90 for about 2 years and I have had success taking pictures of my now 3 year old daughter. Mostly outdoor shots. My wife and I just had our second daughter last November. Since I was layed off from work, it's hard for us to justify spending money on professional shots. I want to setup a little studio in my living room so I can take my own photos of my girls. I looked on Ebay and found this but it might be TOO cheap.

PHOTO STUDIO STROBE FLASH LIGHT UMBRELLA 32"KIT SOFTBOX - eBay (item 180461181117 end time Feb-24-10 08:52:53 PST)

I'm looking for some low priced lighting but not too cheap. Maybe $200-$300 price range. If anybody can direct me to something on Ebay or Amazon or anywhere, I would appreciate it.

 

[Luigihope]

I am new at lighting also and went into quite a bit of investigation as to what I will need as a basic equipment, here is what I ended up purchasing on Amazon:

Light Stand 3´ Westscott $25
Light Stand 7´ Westscott $29
Wireless Hot shoe flash trigger $29
43" White satin umbrella with removable cover $32
Pro Swivel Bracket $23
Apollo 28" Softbox (Recessed front) $125
Vivitar DF383 Flash $130

You can get cheaper stuff for example by purchasing a second umbrella vrs the softbox, and you can get cheaper vivitar flashes, this set is for just for use with one Strobe, if you want to use two, you will have to double the swivel and flash.
So there you go. I hope this helps with your investigation.

 

[Felix0890]

Just buy some cheap stuff to get you started. It would be a shame to buy expensive gear and realize that you don't like artifitial lighting at all.

Example: I bought a $15 convertable umbrella (can be a bounce or shoot-through umbrella by taking off the covers). I was going to buy a nice bounce umbrella since the concept of bouncing light sounded more fun to me. However, now that I experimented with my convertable one, I find that shooting light through the umbrella gives me the effect that I want. Now I can invest in a better one once my cheap one breaks.

By the way, there are cheaper $30 packages that include 1 light kit instead of 2 like the one you linked.