Lighting Kit vs. Individual Component - Looking for Thoughts on Home Studio Lighting

[Count]

Hi gang!
I'm new here and wanted to say hi first! Hola!

I'm a long time amateur photographer and have decided to buy a lighting setup for my home. I've take our son to JC Penny's studio for the past 5 years and want to get into portraits at home. At first I was thinking continuous setup b/c JC Penney seems to have gotten great results with our children (and they are softbox lit with continuous lights). However, after reading threads here it seems most folks think strobe is the best way to go. Is this b/c the brightness of the strobe allows you to shoot at lower # ISO, giving better color and detail at faster speeds?

I'm looking to shoot portraits of our family and hope to add a wide backdrop with C Stands of some kind. My concern with a cheaper kit is the quality of the stands. I plan on setting up and tearing down quite a bit so I think quality stands and lights with some type of bags would be a must. Are there any kits that would offer quality builds?

The main room in my home also has large windows with light coming in. Are strobes able to blend with natural light or will I be covering the windows? The basement is also an option for setup as long as the lights don't get very hot. This is another reason why I'm thinking maybe strobe now - they are cooler right?

Note - looking to get Nikon D5200 in addition to lights and need something that would sync to the camera.

Thanks in advance, gang! I sincerely appreciate everybody's help and time!

 

[Trever1t]

Kits are usually less expensive and lower quality.

 

[Derrel]

Strobes tend to run cooler than "hot lights", yes. I would go with strobes like the Adorama Flashpoint 320M kits...adequate for your needs, and about the right power for portraiture. They have a 3-light kit with two, 320M units and umbrellas or softboxes, and a third, lower-cost light as a background or hair light. That's what I would suggest, a three-light setup.

 

[Count]

Strobes tend to run cooler than "hot lights", yes. I would go with strobes like the Adorama Flashpoint 320M kits...adequate for your needs, and about the right power for portraiture. They have a 3-light kit with two, 320M units and umbrellas or softboxes, and a third, lower-cost light as a background or hair light. That's what I would suggest, a three-light setup.

Thanks, Derrel! Would this setup work for full body shots of 2 kids in front of a background as well? I may want to sit them like with the studio setup.

 

[Count]

Just wanted to ask - if I'm going to be indoors with this setup, do you think its ok to go with continuous over strobe?

 

[KmH]

To get about the same amount of light a 200 watt second flash delivers in 1/500th of a second, you would need a continuous light that delivers a lot more watts.

Strobe lights (flash) is recommended over continuous lights for portraits, because strobes deliver all of their light in a fraction of a second. Studio strobe power is rated in watt seconds (ws), which is not the same as watts-per-second.
Shutter speeds of 1/100 and faster are generally needed to shoot people so the is no camera shake or subject motion blur.

Continuous lights are rated in Watts, which is a watts-per-second rating.

Continuous lights work well when shutter speeds can be 1 second or longer.

Constant lights are used for video and movies because strobe lights can't recycle at the 25+ frames-per-second rate movies are displayed at.
Continuous lighting vs strobe lighting for photography - Bing

 

[Count]

If I'm only using these lights indoors, would the continuous be acceptable?

I was thinking of something like this???
Westcott Spiderlite TD6 2-Light Fluorescent Promo Kit 6222

 

[Derrel]

If I'm only using these lights indoors, would the continuous be acceptable?

I was thinking of something like this???
Westcott Spiderlite TD6 2-Light Fluorescent Promo Kit 6222

GOsh, for $1,099 you could buy an AWESOME studio flash setup that would give you much,much,much more output for still photograph and much more CONTROL over the light and how it falls on the subjects and the background.

Two lights, in two softboxes, is basically two sources of light that has very little "control" or "flexibility". Honestly, that appears to be a criminally-overpriced rip-off of a kit for those kinds of fixtures and thoses boxes and stands....an utterly unacceptable proposition. Unless you wanna shoot a low-budget video...

Wow...hard to believe they are asking that kind of money for that. It's not a very fair asking price, and I would never suggest it to anybody looking to do family pictures. No offense is meant to you; this is an example of a company making up a high-profit sales package and preying upon the inexperience of people who sometimes buy light "kits".

 

[Count]

If I'm only using these lights indoors, would the continuous be acceptable?

I was thinking of something like this???
Westcott Spiderlite TD6 2-Light Fluorescent Promo Kit 6222

GOsh, for $1,099 you could buy an AWESOME studio flash setup that would give you much,much,much more output for still photograph and much more CONTROL over the light and how it falls on the subjects and the background.

Two lights, in two softboxes, is basically two sources of light that has very little "control" or "flexibility". Honestly, that appears to be a criminally-overpriced rip-off of a kit for those kinds of fixtures and thoses boxes and stands....an utterly unacceptable proposition. Unless you wanna shoot a low-budget video...

Wow...hard to believe they are asking that kind of money for that. It's not a very fair asking price, and I would never suggest it to anybody looking to do family pictures. No offense is meant to you; this is an example of a company making up a high-profit sales package and preying upon the inexperience of people who sometimes buy light "kits".

I think I need to read a bit about strobe lighting to see what I would buy....a friend who does photos just uses continuous with a SB700 as a bounce and loves her results. You're saying something more basic would do I guess?

 

[Designer]

If I'm only using these lights indoors, would the continuous be acceptable?

I was thinking of something like this???
Westcott Spiderlite TD6 2-Light Fluorescent Promo Kit 6222

As Derrel said, if you can have the shutter open for about a full second, then they will work. So a still-life composition, but probably not for people.

I don't have any experience with Adorama, so I can't comment on the quality of the offer, but as Derrel said, for that much money you could get
two or three studio flash heads, two softboxes, two or three light stands, a backdrop and backdrop stand.

Here; I just did a really quick scan of the Adorama listing and found these:

JTL TL-540 Versalight D Pro Light Kit 93540

This kit is $760 which leaves you some money for a backdrop. Did not take the time to find your backdrop for you.

 

[Designer]

You're saying something more basic would do I guess?

I don't think that is what Derrel would call it. I would call it more professional. Your friend probably wishes she had $1,000 to spend on studio lighting.

 

[Designer]

Count; Derrel is a professional, so I always pay attention to what he says about lighting.

 

[Count]

Thanks for chiming in, gang. I'm going to read a book or explore websites before buying a whole set. I may even just start with external flash and some type of bounce and diffusion setup.

I look forward to participating in the forum!

 

[Derrel]

I own a JTL Versalight 300 monolight...it's a decade old, and it puts out a LOT of flash power for the Watt-second rating (which is nominally 300). It's on more or less permanent loan now to my niece, who uses it in her hair salon as a butt-kicking "before/after" light with a 22-inch e-Bay beauty dish and the Canon Rebel XT I got for her as a wedding gift a ways back. The Versalight 180- linked to by Designer is probably a better choice; with the JTL VersaLight 300 monolight flash, I was always dialing the thing wayyyyyyyyy down...just too much "oomph!" for my then ISO 200 baseline Nikons.

I think the best beginning set-up for a home studio is a studio flash setup with three, or four, MODEST-power flash units....not 300's,not 600's, not 800's, but three, or four, more or less identical, 150- or 160 Watt-second, lower end monolights, or a smaller, 400 Watt-second flash generator, and four decent light heads (Like a Speedotron Brown LIne D402 and three M90 light heads and then an MW3R light head).

 

[HWOPhotog]

I feel like I am very similar to you, Count... I am looking to get some lighting for my in home studio for portraits. I was considering getting "2 video/photo lighting Dynaphos professional series DP-2497" (they are on craigslist nearby for only $250 and come with the nice cases etc, which I desire because I too will be putting these up and down a lot). I was thinking that these softboxes would be the additional light that I need to do portraits in my studio. I have been using with the natural light (lots of windows) and my speedlite 430 ex II bounced/diffused and have been getting just fine portraits ... but I do want better/more light. I am a little scarred of using strobes... I figured I would get on here and figure out what was the best softbox/continuous light to buy ... the idea of strobes comes with more settings and I am just not sure that I am ready to make my set up more complicated. I figured some softboxes would be simple addition of light.

So I hear what Darrel is saying and I understand you are a professional... but if one was to want to have a good continuous light set up... Id really like to know recommendations for that. I currently only have that speedlite on my camera and am able to get good portraits in my house with faster than 1 second shutterspeeds... I just dont think I am ready to have multiple speedlites that I have to connect and figure out settings for... I guess I am more of a beginner :/ but still want advice on what set up to look into...

Count - I dont want to steel your post - so let me know if I should make my own thread - but like I said, I feel like I am wanting the same thing. I also want to get a backdrop stand. I found "DYNATRAN pro background SUPPORT SYSTEM" on craigslist for $140 and was considering it ... but am looking for advice on good 'portable/pack up able' backdrop stands too.