Lighting suggestions?

Sideburns · Nov 20, 2007

Hello all. Well, I'm starting to try and assemble a kit of lights that I can use in my home as a makeshift studio setup to maybe make some small cash on the side.

Now, I don't really know what I need...so that's why I'm coming to ask.

I see a kit on B&H's website with 2 100 watt/second monolights with stands, boxes, and an umbrella...and case for it all for 259.95. They're made by "impact"..I dono if they're the best quality, but it's better than whatever I have (perhaps some nice LED flashlights lmfao)

here's a link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/404508-REG/Impact__Two_Monolight_Kit_.html

But, I don't know if that's bright enough? Also, I am wondering if you could help me understand how to meter off of something like that? Since it obviously doesn't put out the same amount of light when it flashes..lol. Do you just try a lot?

Let's say I got that kit....what else would I need to make it work with my camera?
I understand I'll need a hotshoe to PC adapter....but what else?

Is there another suggestion for lights that you guys would make that's equally affordable? I want to be able to move them around fairly easily, and I don't want to be buying new bulbs every couple days because they have an extremely short life...

Any advice you can give me would be perfect, because I played around with my instructors lights and a model last night, and it was a blast. I really want to try this on my own with girls I know who have been asking for sessions.

Sideburns · Nov 20, 2007

Doesn't anyone use strobes/monolights?

Perhaps I put it in the wrong forum? I'm not sure, but I'd appreciate any help I can get with this...

Johnboy2978 · Nov 20, 2007

From what I know, Impact is a real budget solution. My main problem with a set up like this is that it doesn't have user replaceable flash tubes. Now does that you just throw them out when the bulb dies? I don't know. Maybe you send them back to the factory. Either way, it's an expensive option I'd think.

The other problem is their power. I use Alien Bee 800s, and their watt/second is 320 compared to 100 with these, plus the recycle time is a little slow IMO. Alien Bees will run you about $300 US per light. I find them to be quite good. They are highly recommended but still others will turn their nose up at them saying they're not "professional" enough and recommend something like photogenic or something else.

If you camera doesn't have a pc connection, you will need a hot shoe adapter as you have figured out and that's all. One will connect to the camera and the other will fire as slave.

As far as metering, since you can't meter it in camera b/c it's strobe and not continuous, the only solution is (1) trial and error or (2) use a light meter like a sekonic L358 incident meter.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/221078-REG/Sekonic_401358_L_358_Flash_Master_Meter.html

What I did was to sit down and calculate the exposure based on guide numbers and made a quick reference for various power settings and various aperture and distance settings. It gets me really close in the ballpark and then I can fine tune and have a proper exposure.

Check out Alien Bees though for some comparison.
http://www.alienbees.com/packages.html

Sideburns · Nov 20, 2007

Johnboy2978 said:
From what I know, Impact is a real budget solution. My main problem with a set up like this is that it doesn't have user replaceable flash tubes. Now does that you just throw them out when the bulb dies? I don't know. Maybe you send them back to the factory. Either way, it's an expensive option I'd think.

The other problem is their power. I use Alien Bee 800s, and their watt/second is 320 compared to 100 with these, plus the recycle time is a little slow IMO. Alien Bees will run you about $300 US per light. I find them to be quite good. They are highly recommended but still others will turn their nose up at them saying they're not "professional" enough and recommend something like photogenic or something else.

If you camera doesn't have a pc connection, you will need a hot shoe adapter as you have figured out and that's all. One will connect to the camera and the other will fire as slave.

As far as metering, since you can't meter it in camera b/c it's strobe and not continuous, the only solution is (1) trial and error or (2) use a light meter like a sekonic L358 incident meter.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/221078-REG/Sekonic_401358_L_358_Flash_Master_Meter.html

What I did was to sit down and calculate the exposure based on guide numbers and made a quick reference for various power settings and various aperture and distance settings. It gets me really close in the ballpark and then I can fine tune and have a proper exposure.

Check out Alien Bees though for some comparison.
http://www.alienbees.com/packages.html

Well I had heard of alienbees, but this is going to be pretty darn budget, and I need the versatility of AT LEAST 2 lights...I'm a college student remember...
While I will upgrade later on...I need something to get my feet wet. Let's say that 350 is my hard budget. Not including the as-15 adapter I'd need...and any other cable adapter to fit the proper end they put on the lights.

Johnboy2978 · Nov 20, 2007

Another option is starting with one light and using a big reflector for fill. You can do some creative lighting with just one light. Working with strobes initially also requires a bit of a learning curve. It's often easier to start with one and figure out what's going on before getting into more complicated scenarios like a key light, fill light, hair light and BG light.

The one thing I've heard about lighting over and over though, is start with the best you can afford, b/c it's much more expensive to buy cheap lights and then buy what you wanted to start with. Cry once or cry everytime you use them they say.

Sideburns · Nov 20, 2007

Johnboy2978 said:
Another option is starting with one light and using a big reflector for fill. You can do some creative lighting with just one light. Working with strobes initially also requires a bit of a learning curve. It's often easier to start with one and figure out what's going on before getting into more complicated scenarios like a key light, fill light, hair light and BG light.

The one thing I've heard about lighting over and over though, is start with the best you can afford, b/c it's much more expensive to buy cheap lights and then buy what you wanted to start with. Cry once or cry everytime you use them they say.

True...but I can barely afford to buy my girlfriend a Christmas present..lol. Due to the horrible job market in my area at the moment..I've been out of work since school started mooching off the parents for money to eat during the day. (chrysler and ford factores are closing and laying off...so all the people have 3 or 4 jobs to make up for the debts they have from the lavish lifestyle they built for themselves on a job they knew wasn't there forever)

Anyways...end of that rant...lol.

So there's no options in terms of 2 lights for 350US? I basically just want a main and fill...then when I can afford more, those two will get moved to background/hair or whatever. I'm pretty sure I would like to start with strobes because that's what I want to move into eventually, so why not right?

If I really can't do it with 2 lights for 350 then I suppose a reflector is ok...but I wanted the convenience of being able to move the lights wherever I wanted and adjusting each.

I have no problem with upgrading to expensive lights once I get a steady income...Hell, I'll go out and pay 500 or more for each light when I have money...but right now I don't. I understand you get what you pay for...but there's gotta some option for me.

Big Mike · Nov 21, 2007

You could consider using hot shoe type flash units. You could get a couple cheap units like the Vivitar 283 or Sunpak 383. Mount them on tripods or cheap light stands. You could get an umbrella or two and use an umbrella-light stand adaptor.

You could also get a cheap radio trigger or optical slave to fire them.

You can actually get pretty good results by using one flash on the camera (as fill) and one off camera (as the main light). Then, all you need is an optical trigger for the off camera unit.

It's not very powerful compared to Alienbees or other 'studio' lights...but it's cheap and quite portable.

Mike Jordan · Nov 21, 2007

Check out the Excalibur lights on B&H. They are in the same class as the Alien Bees but cheaper. They have them in singles and kits. Look for the kits that have two lights without the case and you can save a bit from the kits with the case. The SP-3200 lights give you 320 watt seconds and better control of the light, but their SP-1600 at 160 watt seconds might be more within your budget.

Since you can't afford a flash meter right now, you can use your histogram on your camera to get your exposure very close. If you know how to use your histogram.

Mike

Sideburns · Nov 21, 2007

Mike Jordan said:
Check out the Excalibur lights on B&H. They are in the same class as the Alien Bees but cheaper. They have them in singles and kits. Look for the kits that have two lights without the case and you can save a bit from the kits with the case. The SP-3200 lights give you 320 watt seconds and better control of the light, but their SP-1600 at 160 watt seconds might be more within your budget.

Since you can't afford a flash meter right now, you can use your histogram on your camera to get your exposure very close. If you know how to use your histogram.

Mike

I do know how to use the histogram...but it doesn't work every time...
I may as well just trial and error it...lol...and get used to it.
Thanks for that though...I'll check out those excalibur lights.

Helen B · Nov 21, 2007

Why not get second-hand lights? For around $260 you should be able to pick up a Dyna-Lite D804-II and two heads. The D804-II is an 800 Ws power pack.

Best,
Helen

Mike Jordan · Nov 21, 2007

The histogram works all the time, unless your camera is broke.

If you can learn to read your histogram, it will make a lot of difference to your images.

The idea is to keep all the data in between the left and right side. Don't worry about how high it is, that's not as important as the right and left edges and where they are. If the data is pushed up against the left side you are under exposed. If the data is pushed up against the right side you are over exposed. If you are just touching the left and right side or if there is an even amount of space between the left and right side, you are pretty close to being at the proper exposure.

There's a few other things to look for sometimes, but it's just about that simple. Sometimes the data will be very low and hard to tell it's exposure data and not just the bottom row. You can also calibrate your camera meter or external flash meter with the histogram. If you shoot a black/gray/white card you should have 3 spikes... black will be on the left, gray will be in the middle and white will be on the right.

Lots of things you can do with the histogram to help you, which is why it's so worth the effort to learn how to use it.

Mike

Sideburns · Nov 21, 2007

Mike Jordan said:
The histogram works all the time, unless your camera is broke. If you can learn to read your histogram, it will make a lot of difference to your images.

The idea is to keep all the data in between the left and right side. Don't worry about how high it is, that's not as important as the right and left edges and where they are. If the data is pushed up against the left side you are under exposed. If the data is pushed up against the right side you are over exposed. If you are just touching the left and right side or if there is an even amount of space between the left and right side, you are pretty close to being at the proper exposure.

There's a few other things to look for sometimes, but it's just about that simple. Sometimes the data will be very low and hard to tell it's exposure data and not just the bottom row. You can also calibrate your camera meter or external flash meter with the histogram. If you shoot a black/gray/white card you should have 3 spikes... black will be on the left, gray will be in the middle and white will be on the right.

Lots of things you can do with the histogram to help you, which is why it's so worth the effort to learn how to use it.

Mike

Well thanks...maybe I was just not having a good time with it...lol
I do know about a digital target though...

Mike Jordan · Nov 21, 2007

I had to sit down and really learn to use it. For awhile I thought that the peaks were important, but then I found out those just show how much of that tonal range in there... for instance if there is a lot of black you will get high peaks on the left side. If there is a lot of white you will get high peaks on the right side. If there are a lot of mid tones you will get them in the middle. On the high end cameras they have a RGB histogram so you can see each color channel. You are alone in that a lot of people have problems with using the histogram, so they don't. Once you learn to use it though, you will wonder how you got along with out it. Most of the time anyway.

Mike

the_beginner · Nov 21, 2007

One quick histogram tip I got the other day was to, in your image editing program of choice, make a selection of the critical part of the photo using the ellipse tool (for example for a face in a portrait), and viewing the histogram on that portion of the photo.

The example given with the tip was, you could have a low key photo with the majority of the histogram piled up to the left which mike not look good at first, but you could have a spot-on histogram (big wide lump in the middle) when looking just at the face. And that's where you probably want the audience looking anyhow.

Anyone ever hear of or use this technique?

I personally have a $80 mostly-got-it-off-ebay speedlight with umbrella and stand setup Mike mentions above and find it very fun to work with and learn with. Getting another would only set me back another $80, and it's extremely compact - smaller than a folded up new-style lawn chair like those seen at kids soccer games.