Seeking a budget light kit - I welcome your recommendations

[Dark]

Greetings,

I'm in the market for a lighting kit. In time, I will upgrade to a more high-end model or simply add-on with better components, but for now, my pre-tax maximum price point is set at no more than $349.99 (w/U.S. tax that comes out $381). Ideally I'd prefer a complete 3-light kit, but that may be unrealistic and I'd much rather have a great (or really good) 2-light kit than a cheaply made 3-light knock-off. I'm also open to building my own, so long as the total combined price for the individual pieces stay within my budget. Either Strobes or Continuous are fine as well (no debating the issue please!).

I'll mostly be shooting indoor/outdoor portraits and since this forum is filled with people who have their own studios, I'm seeking your opinion on what kits/pieces are worthy and which I should avoid like the plague. With that said, please keep in mind my budget. Anything over $349, as either a complete set or purchased separately, is out.

• What type of lighting kit do you use (2 lights, 3 lights, brand, continuous, strobes, etc.)?
• How much did it cost?
• How long have you had it?
• Do you have examples of the work you've done using it?

Help is most definitely appreciated. Thank you to all in advance.

 

[tirediron]

What is your rationale for wanting continuous lighting over strobed? Personally, I feel that all continuous lighting should be avoided like the plague.

 

[Dark]

What is your rationale for wanting continuous lighting over strobed? Personally, I feel that all continuous lighting should be avoided like the plague.

I have a film background and I shoot shorts as well as interviews, so a dual lighting set-up (for photography and video) is ideal for me. I have nothing against strobes, as I own a Canon Speedlite 430ex ii which I use for my outdoors and event stuff. The thing is, I'm starting conceptual work on a project where I'll be interviewing people and shooting their portraits. A continuous lighting kit would allow me to do both without switching anything out; whereas a strobe kit won't.

 

[tirediron]

Okay, that makes sense. To be honest, I don't think any of those lights will do the job very well... I think you're going to be hard pressed to find a suitable solution within your budget.

 

[Derrel]

Continuous lights like that are almost useless outdoors. The output is soooooo low! Those would be "okay" for indoor use, as long as 6.5 foot all stands would be sufficiently high. I use electronic flash, aka "studio strobes" for indoor work. It just works great! I have samples on my pBase site of sets shot with $300, 3-light Speedtron setups, 4-light $1699 Speedotron setups, and $2,000 Speedotron setups, as well as some shots made with $149 a one-light monolight setup. My original Speedotron Brownline setup bought in 1986 still works; 2 of the three flashtubes are ORIGINAL, and still fire at full capacity.

Two lights, one small 24x24 softbox camera left, one 11.5 inch reflector with 20 degree grid and two Speedotron mylanr snap-on diffusers on ann 11.5-inch reflector positioned right next to camera as on axis fill light, background plain white wall, allowed to go a bit dark, color created in Lightroom, un-retouched (I can see a flyaway hair that needs removed.) This is a $780, 8 year-old setup with a small, five-pound Speedotron Black Line D405 pack, and two $40 used 103 light heads, and two new flashtubes at $100 each.

[]D3X_5790_auto-proof.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

This second one, basically similar, but a cheap made in China 40-inch umbrella box as main light, and the same 11.5 in ch reflector + grid + 2 snap-on diffusers as my fill light.

[ D3X_5846_auto-proof.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com ]

Back to the first lighting setup, with the 24x24 MIC softbox and same light as my fill, unretouched right outta Lightroom.

[ D3X_6055_auto-proof.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com ] These were all taken for a makeup artist, to show what her makeup looks like totally un-retouched, so skin smoothing was not done. This is the way two simple Speedotron lights work at 100 Watt-seconds each, giving my preferred f/stop for studio flash portraits, which is f/7.1, at ISO 100, and an X-synch speed of 1/200 second. I get .6 second recycle with this pack set at half power like this. It blasted through four sets on four models, a total of 705 frames without a miss.

 

[Dark]

Okay, that makes sense. To be honest, I don't think any of those lights will do the job very well... I think you're going to be hard pressed to find a suitable solution within your budget.

Would you mind detailing why you don't think they'll work? Is it because the light output is not as powerful as strobes?

Continuous lights like that are almost useless outdoors. The output is soooooo low! Those would be "okay" for indoor use, as long as 6.5 foot all stands would be sufficiently high. I use electronic flash, aka "studio strobes" for indoor work. It just works great! I have samples on my pBase site of sets shot with $300, 3-light Speedtron setups, 4-light $1699 Speedotron setups, and $2,000 Speedotron setups, as well as some shots made with $149 a one-light monolight setup. My original Speedotron Brownline setup bought in 1986 still works; 2 of the three flashtubes are ORIGINAL, and still fire at full capacity.

Thanks for the pics, Derrel. Do you have a link to that $300 3-light Speedtron kit? I searched B&H but didn't find one in that price range.

 

[Derrel]

I don't think you'll find the flourescent lights anywhere near powerful enough to compete with daylight, plus they will likely have weird spectral output, and they are LOW power lights designed to sell to make a high profit for the dealers. Since STILL photos indoors can be made at long shutter speeds, the low power of cheap fluorescent bulbs is not an issue on still-life images of inanimate objects, but for PEOPLE, the low-output fluorescents will mean slow shutter speeds at wide-ish apertures.

The Speedotron Brown Line D402 packs sell for $125 all the time on eBay. M90 lights go for $35 to $50 apiece. MW3U lights sell for the same price, more or less. I have bought a BUNCH of low,low priced Brown Line lights and packs over the years, as I find good deals on them. B&H sells used flash equipment at outrageous prices compared to what it sells for on eBay. You will find the SAME D802 kits that sell for $1600 on B&W new for $450 used on eBay.

 

[Dark]

Derrel, I didn't find anything on eBay at that price, but let's forget about continuous kits for a bit. Can anyone recommend a 2 or 3-light strobe kit similar to the ones I linked above (w/lights, stands, softboxes, etc.)? I can always just rent out some Kino's for the interviews, but I'm still going to need a solid kit for portraits.

So let's focus on strobes. Are the ones I showed above - Westcott, Impact, etc. - poor quality? If so, can you recommend anything within my budget?

 

[beachrat]

I went the used Speedotron Brownlike like Derrel just suggested.
In fact,I just scored another pack this week.
An untested,but mint looking, D1202 that I took a chance on figuring it wouldn't cost too much to fix if it didn't work.
It wound up being perfect,fully functional, and shipped to my door for $113.
And I picked up another working M11 head for $65 the week before.
If you take your time,you can put together a lot of power without breaking the bank.

 

[Derrel]

I went the used Speedotron Brownlike like Derrel just suggested.
In fact,I just scored another pack this week.
An untested,but mint looking, D1202 that I took a chance on figuring it wouldn't cost too much to fix if it didn't work.
It wound up being perfect,fully functional, and shipped to my door for $113.
And I picked up another working M11 head for $65 the week before.
If you take your time,you can put together a lot of power without breaking the bank.

The 1202 is fairly uncommon. If I recall correctly,unlike the D1204, it has the 200 Watt-second LOW setting option, like my D1602 has. The advantage of the 200 W-s "LOW" setting (in addition to FULL and HALF) is that the LOW position is actually more in line with what one wants when doing portraiture: the ability to split up just 200 real Watt-seconds' worth of flash power through three or four light heads. And, this is the part many people overlook, when using a high-capacity pack at a low power level like 200 Watt-seconds, the recycling time rivals that of the multi thousand dollar systems...because the system has the ability to store up six to eight times as much stored energy as is being used, the recycle time is measured in tenths of a second when using only 200 W-s.

For doing video, the Black Line's 250 Watt quartz modeling lamps might be sufficient for many uses; I know when I have three of four Black Line lights deployed, with the modeling lamps on Full power, there is a LOT of light in the area! Brown Line M11 units use 150 Watt quart lamps for their modeling lights.

As to the Impact brand of studio monolights: those ARE low-priced, but they look okay to me. Same with Adorama's Flashpoint 320M and 620M. I'm not really 100% sold on the idea of using flash monolights as a way to supply light for videography, but I suppose it could be done, but it seems like low-cost hot lights for video would make more sense. Of course one also needs diffusing and light controlling tools for those lights too. I have been recommending the Adorama Flashpoint 320M as the budget flash monolight for a long time, but the Impact and Genesis models look good too.

 

[tirediron]

Okay, that makes sense. To be honest, I don't think any of those lights will do the job very well... I think you're going to be hard pressed to find a suitable solution within your budget.

Would you mind detailing why you don't think they'll work? Is it because the light output is not as powerful as strobes?

Because it's just plain not powerful enough; I've never used continuous lighting, but having talked to others who do, and done a fair amount of research, unless you get into Kino-flo territory, you're going to be pi$$ing against the wind.

 

[CameraClicker]

I don`t know if something like this would be useful: LUMAHAWK LD144A ON-CAMERA LED LIGHT LMX-LD144A I have seen them at shows and they are painful to look at even from several yards away. Wescott makes some continuous lights that take very large curly fluorescent bulbs. Each lamp has about six bulbs, you can turn them on individually, or together. I don`t think they are nearly as bright as a 400 WS strobe.
There is something called a SPIDERLITE TD6 W/TILTER BRACKET 110V which is $420, without bulbs, in Canada, so probably less in the states. It says 1200 watts. The WESTCOTT 85WATT 5500K FLOURESCENT LAMPs are $65 each!

I have the ERIN MANNING HOME STUDIO KIT, which is a couple of 24X24 softboxes with small compact fluorescent bulbs. Great for product work, virtually useless for serious portraits, I would rather use speedlights or studio strobes.

Something I have observed is, in movies, individual frames have blur, and you need that blur to make the movie smooth. In still photos, blur can be used to indicate motion, but usually you want the ability to freeze motion and provide a nice crisp shot. Speedlights are king for that because they have such a short flash duration, studio strobes have a longer flash but more light, and most continuous light systems don`t provide sufficient light to allow a fast shutter speed with small aperture, and continuous light is continuous, so there is no flash to freeze movement.

 

[beachrat]

I went the used Speedotron Brownlike like Derrel just suggested.
In fact,I just scored another pack this week.
An untested,but mint looking, D1202 that I took a chance on figuring it wouldn't cost too much to fix if it didn't work.
It wound up being perfect,fully functional, and shipped to my door for $113.
And I picked up another working M11 head for $65 the week before.
If you take your time,you can put together a lot of power without breaking the bank.

The 1202 is fairly uncommon. If I recall correctly,unlike the D1204, it has the 200 Watt-second LOW setting option, like my D1602 has. The advantage of the 200 W-s "LOW" setting (in addition to FULL and HALF) is that the LOW position is actually more in line with what one wants when doing portraiture: the ability to split up just 200 real Watt-seconds' worth of flash power through three or four light heads. And, this is the part many people overlook, when using a high-capacity pack at a low power level like 200 Watt-seconds, the recycling time rivals that of the multi thousand dollar systems...because the system has the ability to store up six to eight times as much stored energy as is being used, the recycle time is measured in tenths of a second when using only 200 W-s.

Yep the "low-200ws" setting is a great feature and it works perfectly for what I need.
1200ws is more than enough for anything I do,but having all that headroom is nice and makes for very quick recycles.
Plus,although the guy wanted $39 to ship it,he jumped at my offer of $75.
Great equipment is sweet enough,but dirt cheap is even better.

 

[Dark]

I don`t know if something like this would be useful: LUMAHAWK LD144A ON-CAMERA LED LIGHT LMX-LD144A I have seen them at shows and they are painful to look at even from several yards away. Wescott makes some continuous lights that take very large curly fluorescent bulbs. Each lamp has about six bulbs, you can turn them on individually, or together. I don`t think they are nearly as bright as a 400 WS strobe.
There is something called a SPIDERLITE TD6 W/TILTER BRACKET 110V which is $420, without bulbs, in Canada, so probably less in the states. It says 1200 watts. The WESTCOTT 85WATT 5500K FLOURESCENT LAMPs are $65 each!

I have the ERIN MANNING HOME STUDIO KIT, which is a couple of 24X24 softboxes with small compact fluorescent bulbs. Great for product work, virtually useless for serious portraits, I would rather use speedlights or studio strobes.

Something I have observed is, in movies, individual frames have blur, and you need that blur to make the movie smooth. In still photos, blur can be used to indicate motion, but usually you want the ability to freeze motion and provide a nice crisp shot. Speedlights are king for that because they have such a short flash duration, studio strobes have a longer flash but more light, and most continuous light systems don`t provide sufficient light to allow a fast shutter speed with small aperture, and continuous light is continuous, so there is no flash to freeze movement.

Hey CameraClicker. Personally, I'm not a big fan of LED lights right now, but that's a personal opinion. I saw the Erin Manning kit in an ad somewhere and knew it wasn't for me. Thanks for the reply and suggestions.

I have edited my original post to hopefully provide some clarity on what I'm seeking.

 

[Santa_Claus]

I'd say keep an eye on Craigslist for some Alien Bees or Paul Buff strobes. Use the modeling light for video and the strobe for photos. One big strobe and a reflector could be all you need. I got a pair of 1600 White Lightnings for a good deal, maybe you'll find something similar.