Help with Alien Bee lighting outdoors!

[texxter]

I am hoping someone who shoots with AB's outdoors could chime in.. I shoot mostly studio and i have several AB's currently. AB1600, AB800 and 2 AB400's. I have a tiny shooting space indoors so my 1600 was too much and i felt like the 800 might be too much so i recently picked up two used ab400's thinking i would sell the 800 and 1600. But now I've been thinking about shooting outdoors as well when I do seniors or maternity shots and i'm worried that having a Ab400 wouldn't be powerful enough for outdoors. So... my question is, should i keep the 2 400's for studio and outdoors or a 400 and 800? Thanks so much for your help

Given that you have already bought all this equipment, and as long as you don't need to sell to fund something else, I would keep three lights and sell one. Keep (1) AB1600 for outdoor shoots that require high power; (2) AB800 for both studio and outdoor; and (3) AB400 for studio, combined with the AB800 if you need two lights. That would probably give you the ability to do everything you need at the cost of 3 lights instead of 2.

Shooting outdoors with a strobe is very doable with a lower power AB as long as you don't have bright sun. If you want the flash to be main when you're in a f/16 1/125 sec sunlight situation, you need lots of power and f/16-f22, which now requires a graduated density filter to control depth of field to something reasonable. For me overpowering the sun is not something I do often as the results are a bit unnatural and you need special equipment. But cloudy or sunrise/sunset situations with f/5.6 1/125 sec light conditions can produce beatiful results with a flash as main, as long as it's color matched to the ambient.

 

[mrca]

Window light can be beautiful... when the sun is shining but difficult at night. Also, if a cloudy day, it changes quickly and changes over several hours as the sun moves. Also, if overcast, intensity may be low and you may be forced to jack iso or shoot slower shutter speeds or wide open when you don't want to do so. Knowing how to use a window is invaluable for run and gun as well when don't have time to set up, have with you, or are prohibited from using lights. One light can be enough but once you start building the shot, the hard part can be to know when to stop. Knowing how to make 1 light act as 2 or 3 is a good skill. I am not of the school that believes the lighting must look "natural" like there is only one light. Who died and made those folks the art police? Was Picasso limited to only one brush? His work doesn't look natural.