lighting & photography career (two different topics covered in this post)

[Sep]

I'm trying to work on my lighting.. im interested in some lighting equipment. I will likely build my own stands and light sources. Im probably going to buy an umbrella to get me started as well. As most of you have guessed it will be a continuous light setup. I have dimmers laying around I could use. Will be getting tungsten and fluorescent bulbs. 5300k fluo, and 3200k tung.

I would like to get a job at studio as perhaps a technician or something along those lines, and I was told having a good light background and understanding is a must. I know there are cheap options out there, but making my own is even cheaper. I'm trying to save every cent! Right now I only have the 50mm 1.4 which is great for portraits which is what I'm trying to do, but I'm also saving to buy a friends' 24-70mm 2.8 L. But yeah, basically for the past couple of days I've been doing a lot of reading and research into this. I feel like this will be a good way for me to get started and experimenting.

Any tips on either getting a job at a studio or stuff I should look into for practice will be appreciated.

 

[gsgary]

You are going to have fun with White Balance with 2 different temperatures

 

[Sep]

You are going to have fun with White Balance with 2 different temperatures

how else would I get a white light and warm light in the same shot?

 

[Village Idiot]

You are going to have fun with White Balance with 2 different temperatures

how else would I get a white light and warm light in the same shot?

Usually not a desirable trait, but flashes and gels. Most all strobes are right around the same color temp, so you can mix and match without too big of a problem.

 

[Patrice]

By the time you have bought the fixtures and daylight balanced fluorescents you are well into the same price range as manual speedlights. 285's or equivalent are not that expensive and can be fired with simple inexpensive light sensing triggers or even cheaper home made sync cables.

 

[Derrel]

SERIOUSLY, buy some electronic flash units. Skip the cheap, continuous lighting and go straight to electronic flash units.

 

[Sep]

SERIOUSLY, buy some electronic flash units. Skip the cheap, continuous lighting and go straight to electronic flash units.

Why would I do that? It's like saying get a 5D instead of working your way up. I literally have a 50 dollar budget for this.

 

[Village Idiot]

SERIOUSLY, buy some electronic flash units. Skip the cheap, continuous lighting and go straight to electronic flash units.

Why would I do that? It's like saying get a 5D instead of working your way up. I literally have a 50 dollar budget for this.

Well with a fair comparison, the lighting setup you're looking at is like shooting with a $100 P&S.

Expand your budget. I know, you may have to wait and save and figure out a way to get the money, but you can get a new Vivitar 285HV for under $100. At most, you'll need a light stand ($30), a cheap umbrella ($20), and an umbrella adapter with cold shoe ($15), along with a longer sync cable or sync option.

That's $115 over your budget. Radio triggers would be about another $30-40, but would allow great freedom. You could even find some used flashes for under $100 to help out.

That's more like going for a used 30D than a 5D. It's a capable setup that will get you started in the right direction.

And of course, if you want large monolights or a pack and head system, you're just screwed. But at least with the speedlights there is a wide range of modifiers for them. What happens if you need diffusers, snoots, beauty dishes, or other modifiers to get the photos you want?

 

[gsgary]

SERIOUSLY, buy some electronic flash units. Skip the cheap, continuous lighting and go straight to electronic flash units.

Why would I do that? It's like saying get a 5D instead of working your way up. I literally have a 50 dollar budget for this.

Spend the $50 down at the pub instead of cheap crap that will most likely look crap

 

[Rob1n]

Don't listen to all there negativity, continuous lights are far better to start with. The difference in colour temperature if bulbs bought on same day is no big deal. If you can afford it get a few more lights. What you need to practice is filling shadows with detail without loosing depth. Few photographers can do that with flash, I had to pay the price of a family car to get flash with the control you get with tungsten. I have a friend that built an acting photography business with just your set up and he earns over a 100k a year. Good luck

 

[Rob1n]

ps for portraits an 80 200 will be much more use than a 24 70 and not much more. I use that lense 10 times mopre than all my othe 10 lenses

 

[Village Idiot]

Don't listen to all there negativity, continuous lights are far better to start with. The difference in colour temperature if bulbs bought on same day is no big deal. If you can afford it get a few more lights. What you need to practice is filling shadows with detail without loosing depth. Few photographers can do that with flash, I had to pay the price of a family car to get flash with the control you get with tungsten. I have a friend that built an acting photography business with just your set up and he earns over a 100k a year. Good luck

Really? Because any cheap strobe with a CTO gel will get that effect and if I could buy a good car for $100, I'd be all over it.

Why are continuous lights far better to start with?

 

[Sep]

I think everyone is miss understanding me here. I'm not trying to get into the portrait business or start my own studio here. I just want something small and cheap to basically start me off so I can learn. Yeah it wont be an awesome setup that will allow me to do anything I want, but it'll give me a basic understanding of lighting. I dont plan on getting a lens for portraits either, because right now it's not my thing. Maybe in the future it will be, in which case I might concider it. For my purpose the 50mm is going to do what I want it to. I guess this thread can get locked since no one is really seeing this through my eyes. I did learn one thing though. That I dont want to go flurecent and tung, rather if anything I'd want to go with a blue gel, so that's good.