Wanting to set up a small home studio and looking for recommendations on what to get.

[manaheim]

Awesome, thanks!

BTW... Derrel originally recommended 5 of these lights... do you think I could get away with 2? 3?

 

[Mike_E]

Awesome, thanks!

BTW... Derrel originally recommended 5 of these lights... do you think I could get away with 2? 3?

IF you really want the studio experience then I'd say that three is the minimum (random guy on the internet I know).

One for key and a reflector for fill, one for a hair light and one for the background.

You can use just one but then using diffusers, reflectors, gobos and mirrors becomes a huge pain and you actually will need more space than if you had three lights. Buy, beg or borrow the Dean Collins video to see how it's done.

 

[dbvirago]

I only have 3. I have a lastolite background, so I can get pure white bg with one light, then I use a key and fill. Regardless of how many you get, my recommendation would be start with one light and see all you can and can't do with that, then add a reflector or 2nd light and build on that.

 

[tirediron]

Awesome, thanks!

BTW... Derrel originally recommended 5 of these lights... do you think I could get away with 2? 3?

It really depends on what you want to do... you can do a LOT with one light! I find that for most of my studio work, I wind up using three and my big (60") reflector. One key, one hair, one background and the reflector for fill. That said, the more the better and five lights would mean that there wasn't much you couldn't do. As far as the flash meter, keep an eye on Craig's List - I picked up that exact same Flash V (and BTW it is a KICK-BUTT meter!) for $180 - you can find used Sekonics and older Flash III & IVs for ~$100. "Hit and miss" gets old really quick!