need some help

[s3rocks]

i need some advice on lightning, i just want to know if you can give me examples of a setup to use for portraits 1 to let say 8 people
i like this one

 

[Alpha]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that kit is an absolute POS. The light is a cheap piece of Chinese junk with hardly enough power to light a cantaloupe (45 watt seconds). Even for one person, you're looking at a cost of roughly $400 for one decent light, plus stand, speed-ring, and soft-box-- and that's if you get a good deal. You might be able to get away with a 160 w/s strobe for a single person, but really you'd want to aim for one with about 300 w/s of power. Ideally, you'd want two lights. Shooting 8 people is a very tall order in terms of light power. If I were shooting 8 people, I would want several strobes with power ratings of 600 w/s or higher depending on the setting in which you were shooting and the style you were going for.

For budget lights, look at the following makers:
Dynalite
Alien Bees/ White Lightning
SP Studio Systems
Interfit
Sunpak

Some of my less favorite, but affordables:
Smith Victor
JTL

You could also try looking at these brands used:
Calumet
Hensel

 

[Helen B]

When you are looking at specs, just bear in mind that some companies inflate their watt second ratings by using 'effective watt seconds'. For example, an Alien Bees B400 is a 160 Ws unit, a Dyna-Lite UNI400JR is a 400 Ws unit when used on mains power. There's a very big difference in price between those two, however. Alien Bees are completely open and honest about this, fortunately.

...
For budget lights, look at the following makers:
Dynalite
...

Dyna-Lites are budget lights? Surely you meant to put them in the 'consider used' list - to which I would add at least Bowens, Balcar and Speedotron.

Best,
Helen

 

[Alpha]

Damnit I keep confusing Dyna-Lites with cheap junk. You're absolutely correct.

As for your other recommendations, I'm not that huge a fan of Bowens older monolights, though that may just be my personal taste/distrust of their reliability/availability of flash-tubes.

As for Speedo, perhaps the Brown line used, but still pushing the price envelope.

The black line I would lump in with Profoto and Broncolor.

 

[solrac8126]

i also saw that amazon kit and thought for the price i could go with it.

that's my main issue i don't have 1k to spend, at least not right now, but i need some source of ligth!!

 

[Alpha]

Buy a single good light and a couple accessories, and learn to use it well. Then add on more lights.