Business picking up need help with first exterior lighting kit.

[SensePhoto]

Just wanted to see if anyone has any suggestions. I've been taking some car photos on the side for quite sometime now and things are starting to pick up as word of mouth spreads and im interested in getting a lighting kit with some stands and soft boxes. Any idea what i should be looking for? Really would appreciate your help. Here's most recent shot under the street lights:


Viper by Sense Photo, on Flickr

as you can see i could really use a multiple light kit

 

[amolitor]

is an awesome video on just this subject. Pay attention around the 7:30 mark, it gets very very interesting.

 

[tirediron]

What's your budget; lighting can go anywhere from $100 to $100,000!

 

[SensePhoto]

What's your budget; lighting can go anywhere from $100 to $100,000!

Under $400 to start with.

Thats a pretty cool video Amolitor thanks!

 

[tirediron]

That's pretty tight; I'd go with a Flashpoint 320, battery pack, and a large soft-box to start. There should be just enough left over for a set of Yongnuo radio triggers.

 

[Village Idiot]

Er...outdoor lighting with modifiers and any sort of distances starts requiring big power. I personally would touch anything under 600w/s and your budget is kind of low. For that, I'd look at some cheap speedotrons, but even then your going to be pushing it with your budget.

The couple car photos I was doing had 1200w/s and 800w/s packs running three lights between them.

 

[Village Idiot]

And my reasoning behind that is that you're probably going to be shooting with smaller apertures to get a bigger DOF and therefor, you're going to need more power out of your lights. Plus, you're going to want to overpower the ambient for the most part or otherwise, you're going to be fighting two or more different white balances.

 

[KmH]

+1 to what Village Idiot said. Car are larger than most lighting subjects, so what works for shooting a person is genereally to small for shooting a car.

Having some speedlights for adding rim light from behind the car, interior light, under the car light, in the engine compartment light, snooted for lighting wheels, etc is also worth considering.

I found using very large diffusion panels worked better than using softboxes. The idea is to use light modifiers as big or bigger than what you're wanting to light so specular highlights are minimized. The bright white, 4 foot long streak on the drivers door there under the window in the shot you posted is a specular highlight.

You might find this inexpensive book helpful if you don't already have it: Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting