Help me upgrade my lighting set up

[vanislecannabis]

Greetings

I'm looking to get a new lighting set up for shooting dried marijuana, cuttings from plants and the occasional bit of merchandise such as water bottles and mugs. Here's a few examples:




Right now I have two lights which don't offer me much in the way of control, especially when I'm doing merchandise with glossy surfaces. I have a light tent I'm just not getting the results I want, especially with the merchandise. I get too many reflections from the side of the tent and glossy items end up with a milky white glow on the edges.

One of my current lights:



I've been looking around and I'm thinking of getting some speedlights and soft boxes. I think strobes would be ideal but they might be a bit too costly.

-Should I go off brand cheap on the speedlights or get a more established brand?
-What size / shape soft boxes should I be looking for based on the size of the stuff I'm shooting? The cuttings are usually about 12 - 18 inches tall. Everything else is pretty small.
-What's the best trigger system to make sure everything goes off at the same time?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tirediron]

The best trigger system is the Pocket Wizard system, however given that you're not going to be shooting all day, every day, and you're not shooting anything moving, I'm not sure that you really need that level of cost or quality. I would think 2-3 speedlights from one of the better off-brand MiC companies such as Godox or Newwer would serve you well and they make decent trigger systems to go with their product. I would look at a couple of small/medium softboxes, say, 24-36" range and maybe a large (48") reflecting umbrella for "big" fill, if you're shooting multiple items. The key will be colour consistency, which you won't get in the MiC gear, but you can easily account for by shooting in raw and correcting in post. Spend the $100 on a X-Rite Colour Checker Passport which will let you dial in your colours as accurately as possible.

 

[turkeyjerky214]

You might also consider LED light panels. Unless you go for the pro line of Godox strobes, there is some inconsistency in power and color temp. I use 3 AD600 and 1 AD200. For portraits, I don't really care about that, but if I were shooting products, I would want the light to be the exact same in every shot.