SB 600's as portable strobe lighting kit?

[Vtec44]

I currently have 2 SB600's and have been contemplating about using them as my portable lighting kit with bounce cards or silver reflector umbrellas. I'm just curious if any of you guys and gals here have successfully used speedlights as your portable lighting kit. If yes, can you tell me a bit more about your setup, ie speedlight model, how many lights, shoot through/silver umbrellas, etc?

TIA.

 

[Patrice]

I've used SB800's and SB600's with umbrellas and controlled through the CLS system. However I prefer manually adjusted flashes such as ganged Vivitars and Metz and Sunpack potato mashers and using a flash meter to set things up and fired with optical slaves. Modifiers are silver and gold reflectors and silver and gold reflective umbrellas. My umbrellas range from 30 inches to 42 inches. I don't use shoot through umbrellas, a large octobox with a 400 ws monolight does that job.

Over the years I've collected a few light sources: 2 SB800, 1 sb600, 4 HV285, 4 Metz 45CL, 2 Sunpak 544 and a few monolights (mixed brands-pawn shop finds)

 

[KmH]

The SB-600 doesn't have a lot of power. Actually, the same is true of most hot shoe mounted strobe light (flash) units.

When I do use hot shoe mounted strobes, I typically use 2 units at each lighting position (to double the light power) which is why I now have 9 of the Vivitar 285HV Auto Professional Flash + " FREE " 4 AA 2700mah Rechargeable Batteries and Charger

I use iShoot, PT-04 radio receivers that can mount and fire 2 of the 285HV units from a single receiver.

 

[ghache]

I have 2 sb-600 and 3 vivitar 285 HV that i use with cheap ebay triggers, stands, gels, umbrellas and a small 24X24 softbox

Honestly, i used my sb-600s with CLS a few time and during bright sunny day , it didnt work really well.

i end up shooting everything in manual 95% of the time. Thats were a light meeter comes handy.


Once i have the budjet, i will deffinetly buy a couple more powerfull strobes and a battery pack that i could use in location were hauling heavy gear is not a problem but for now, i was able to do pretty much everything i needed with the speedlights, They are light to move around and cheap.

Like Kmh said, pairing a couple units gives you decend power. i made myself a dual mount bracket but you could easily mount 3-4 unit on the same bracket.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...36651-diy-dual-flash-bracket-speedlights.html

 

[kundalini]

For speedlights, I have 1x SB600 & 3x SB800. For modifiers, I use softboxes (15" & 24"), umbrellas (shoot through & reflective), snoots, grids, reflectors, diffusers & scrims or anything else that can control the light (like a Chinese globe lantern). I have light stands from 6' to 13' with reflector arms and booms plus counterweights. I have adapters for the light stands to mount the flashes, ball bungee cords, superclamps, justin clamps, duct tape if the light stand won't work. I can use Nikon's CLS to remotely fire them, but much prefer to use Cybersync's by Paul C. Buff while in Manual Shooting mode (camera & flash). I use a light meter. I have ~8 sets of AA rechargable batteries. I have 3 or 4 bags to carry most of this in, plus the camera bags. Yep, it's portable, but I can also mix the speedlights with the studio strobes.

 

[Vtec44]

Wow, great stuff. Thanks for the posts guys!

 

[jkzo]

i have enquired about sb600 in a local camera shop. it was said that sb600 is discontinued whether it is correct?

 

[Ginu]

i have enquired about sb600 in a local camera shop. it was said that sb600 is discontinued whether it is correct?

SB700 replaced the SB600, however stores still have SB600's in stock.

 

[ghache]

i use 3 vivitar and 2 Sb-600 for locations where i cant plug my studio strobes (i dont have a battery pack)

You have to carefuly choose your spots/background and location so you dont have too much light to kill because speedlights are not that powerfull, sometime i have to couple 2 flash in the same umbrella, or use them bare.

 

[joealcantar]

I use one of these for simple head shots and maybe 2/3 body shots and it does a fine job. Light and simple to set up and does not catch the wind as much as an umbrella. Make sure you also get a boa bag (sand bag) for the stand to give it a little weight to keep it from tipping over.
-
https://www.canogacamera.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=11305
-
Matthews | Boa Bags 10 Lbs. | 299887. I know it seems like alot but having a light fall over and looking at 3-5 Hundred dollars break makes your heart drop. I also place my camera bag on the leg of the stand to help just in case.
-
Shoot well, Joe

 

[Mike_E]

They'll work OK, just remember to turn off the standby or they'll go to sleep on you (an annoyance). Press and hold the select button (SEL) for a couple of seconds and the flash will go to the menu then use the + and - to scroll down/up until you get to standby (STBY). Press the SEL button and then you can adjust the time (in seconds) before the flash goes into standby, or turn it off altogether.











Edit: I cut and pasted this from antother site because I'm lazy ie didn't want to go and dig out my 600 to check. So, there is a way and I think that this is it but if not RTFM (like I seldom do )

 

[bhee321]

you could also look into getting some yongnuo flashes. They are cheap and the 560 is as powerful as an sb-900. I use a couple of those along with a sb600 and a vivitar 285 along with some cybersyncs. and to carry everything around i use a Hakuba tripod case. One case i could fit a light stand, 2 umbrellas, 2 flashes, all my triggers, extra batteries, and more. Amazon.com: HAKUBA USA INC PSTC100 Tripod Case: Adorama Camera

 

[Destin]

They'll work OK, just remember to turn off the standby or they'll go to sleep on you (an annoyance). Press and hold the select button (SEL) for a couple of seconds and the flash will go to the menu then use the + and - to scroll down/up until you get to standby (STBY). Press the SEL button and then you can adjust the time (in seconds) before the flash goes into standby, or turn it off altogether.

Edit: I cut and pasted this from antother site because I'm lazy ie didn't want to go and dig out my 600 to check. So, there is a way and I think that this is it but if not RTFM (like I seldom do )

You actually hold the minus button and the zoom button at the same time to access the menu. Then you use the arrows to scroll up/down until you reach the stby setting. Use the mode button to toggle it to off (you can't choose time settings, it's either auto, on, or off) To exit the menu, simply hit the power button once.

 

[Derrel]

Like KeH, I like to take two Vivitar 285 HV flashes, and rubber band them back-to back, with either an optical slave on one, and a short, 7-inch PC connector running from the slave to the PC outlet of the other flash. Using two flashes splits the workload up between them if you need the power or short flash durations or quicker recycling time. I use a Quantum Battery 1, which has two outlets, and will provide upwards of 500 flashes when the flashes are used at 1/2 power or in a wide-aperture AUTO Thyristor setting.

I like Photoflex convertible, black-backed, reflecting umbrellas for use with speedlights. I think the "quality" and "look" of the lighting is far better with those than with cheap, no-name, shoot-through umbrellas. To me, shoot-through umbrellas produce a weak, sickly type of light that looks very, well, shoot-through...it creates a type of weak, shiny highlight on foreheads,noses, and chines, that I think looks poor. It's hard to describe, but I guess I would call it a sickly type of subtle specular highlighting that just does not look as good as a much more-crisp and more sharply-edged highlighting that one sees from reflecting umbrellas. Shoot-through is pretty wasteful of flash power too, with something like 40/60 utilized/lost flash power with some umbrellas. The lost 60 percent bounces away from the subject, while 40 percent of the light goes toward the subject, which in confined spaces means that a shoot-through causes a lot of what is known as ambient light spill. To me, it's better to have almost ALL of the light going one way--toward the SUBJECT, and not bouncing all over the place.