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There's an HDR thread, there's a business thread, but there appeared to be no lighting thread. I've never been good at wall of text OPs, but I'll give it a shot anyways. I'll be focusing more on continuous, hot-shoe flash and studio strobe lights, as I have limited experience with complex setups using available light. As always, ask questions, we have plenty of people here who are better at this than I am who can answer them for you. Introduction The purpose, generally, of using artificial lighting in photography is to either provide all the light necessary for a proper exposure, or supplement the existing (available) light to get a proper exposure. Additionally, the light is used as a creative element in the photograph, to define the subject and create mood. How to use your lights artistically is beyond the scope of this, and in the end is something you really have to learn for yourself. The best way to start doing this is to look at picture you like - if you sit down and think about it for a few minutes, you can usually get a rough idea of the lighting setup. With a little more thought, you can sometimes work out exactly what the photographer did. Stop by the Photo A Day thread, and if you see something you like, you can always ask how it was done. One thing to consider is color temperature - essentially, what color "white" is. You can see this looking at any high rise building - the difference in the color of light coming from apartments that have incandescent bulbs, fluorescent, etc. Your camera needs to know what color white currently is, using the camera's white balance setting, That, too, is beyond the scope of this post, but it's something to bear in mind. Types of Lights There are two basic types of lights you're likely to use - continuous lights and strobes. Continuous lights are the kind you have in your house - they have an incandescent or fluorescent bulb, some kind of housing, and they emit light constantly. Incandescent lights are sometimes referred to as "hot" lights. Their color temperature depends on the type of bulb used. These lights can range anywhere from a desk lamp that you use to add some light to some lego men you posed on your desk to medium-sized panels of compact fluorescent tubes to multi-thousand-watt studio units. As you would expect, when you ramp up the wattage, you get a great deal more heat. Pros: What you see is exactly what you get - apart from proper exposure, the camera sees what you see. Continuous lights are also quite often cheaper - in its most basic form it's just a socket and a bulb. Even adding reflectors and other light mods, they're still not that much. You can use your camera's meter, since the light doesn't change for the actual exposure. Cons: On reasonable scales, light output can't compete with a strobe. They generate a lot of heat for the amount of light they output, even at relatively low wattages. Color temperature can vary with wattage, bulb type, etc. The bulbs need to be replaced a whole lot more than strobe tubes do. You typically need 120V power. Strobes are the other kind of light you're likely to use, and are what most people use. At this point I'm lumping in hot-shoe flashes with studio units. The built-in flash on your point & shoot is the low end of this, through hot-shoe flashes that mount on your DSLR, up to several-thousand-watt-second studio strobes with massive power packs. These lights work on the principle that you don't need light all the time, you only need it for the split-second when the camera's shutter is open. When your strobe fires, a trigger pulse is applied to an electrode on a glass tube full of xenon gas, ionizing it, causing the power from a high-voltage capacitor to flow through it, producing light. This entire process takes around a millisecond, give or take. Since all the power is released in a short period of time, and due to the higher efficiency, you can get pretty hilarious amounts of light out of even a small battery-powered strobe. Enough light that a 285HV, which is powered by four AA batteries, can set things on fire if they're too close (<1") to it (I have a singed pair of black socks to prove it). While color temperature can vary based on a few factors, most strobes are 'daylight balanced' to somewhere around 5600K. Pros: Huge light output even for battery-powered units, compared to hot lights. Battery-powered strobes are small and portable. Typically, not much heat is generated during normal use. Can be used to freeze motion. Pretty consistent color temperature between units. Cons: You can't see what the light looks like until it fires (typically). Recycle times (recharging the capacitor) can be long for battery-powered units. The camera's meter can't be used, unless you're using a TTL hotshoe flash. Types of Strobes Built-in/pop-up flashes are what you probably have on your camera already. They have tiny flashtubes which are pushed harder than they probably should be. The advantage is that it's right there on your camera. That's really all it has going for it. Since it's hitting the subject head-on, light from these typically looks very flat and boring. There are no shadows, and it's all very two-dimensional. You should try to avoid using this. Pop-up flashes have found some use in controlling remote flashes, via systems like Nikon's CLS. They can also be used at very low power to trigger optically slaved strobes, but there are much better ways. Hot-shoe flashes are the next step up. These are typically battery-powered and mount on the hotshoe on the top of the camera. The camera triggers them via contacts in the shoe. They have larger but still pretty small flash tubes. They can output a pretty respectable amount of light, and depending on the flash, lighting a subject fifty feet away wouldn't be a stretch. Some of these have flash heads that can swivel and tilt, and have a zoom function so the spread of light coming out of the flash roughly matches the coverage of your lens. These flashes can also be removed from the camera and placed elsewhere for more complex lighting setups, triggered optically or via radio triggers. Examples of this are the Vivitar 285HV, Nikon SB-600, Canon 430EX, Olympus FL36, and others. Studio strobes are the next step up. They have the largest flash tubes, and are typically not battery-powered. Some units are self-contained, and some have external power packs. They offer huge light output, and arguably better-looking light due to their larger circular flash tube. Many also feature incandescent modelling lights, which allow you to see how light falls on your subject, although they cannot be used to determine exposure. While also the most expensive option, you can still get an entry-level strobe for a couple hundred dollars, which ain't much for photography gear. Examples of studio strobes are the Alien Bees / White Lightning units, Profoto, Elinchrom, Bowers, and others. What you need for off-camera flash use Well, you need a flash. You can get a small hotshoe flash for $20, and a cheap one is fine as long as it has a manual power mode. The Vivitar 285HV is around $80, and isn't bad for the price. You can get started with an Alien Bees AB400 for around $200, if you want something bigger and better. At the very least, you need a flash, some way to mount it, and some way to trigger it. Lightstands are cheap, can be extended up to ten feet on some models, and are lightweight and compact enough to be easy to transport. On top of your light stand, you need a way to mount your flash. Typically this is something that allows you to attach your flash, tilt it up and down, and attach a light modifier such as umbrella or softbox. What this means to you depends on what kind of flash you have. It can be useful to purchase starter kits that include everything you need, or visit a local photography store and find what you need. You also need a way to tell your flash to fire. You can do this either with wires or wirelessly. The more pro cameras and flashes have what's called a PC socket, which is a small round connector that lets you use a cable to attach your camera to the flash, so the camera can tell it to fire. If your camera and/or flash doesn't have this, you can purchase hotshoe-PC adapters inexpensively. The cheapest wireless option is using an optical slave - your main flash fires, and a sensor attached to the other flash detects that and fires the other flash. This can be helpful in multi-light setups, and many studio strobes have built-in optical slaves. The last option is to wirelessly trigger the flashes with radio triggers. A transmitter sits on your camera, the receiver's attached to the flash, and the camera fires the flash with a radio signal. This can range from inexpensive but unreliable "eBay triggers" (typically Cactus V2), to expensive but rock-solid Pocket Wizard triggers. If cost is an issue, you can always use a radio trigger on your main light and an optical slave on your other lights. Light Modifiers There are any number of things you can put in front of your flash to change how the light comes out and what it looks like. Umbrellas and softboxes both serve to diffuse the light, making it softer. These mount on your light stand, and your flash fires into them. Umbrellas are cheap, portable, and effective, and provide very soft diffuse light. Softboxes cost a little more and are a bit bulkier, and provide light that is soft but still somewhat directional. You can also get small diffusers that slide over the end of your hot-shoe flash, Sto-Fen Omnibounces are popular brand. A company called LumiQuest also sells tiny little softbox-looking things that attach to hotshoe flashes using velcro. At the other end of the spectrum are massive studio softboxes, like the Octabank. There are also times when you want to restrict the output of the flash, and for this you might use snoots or grids. A snoot is a tube-shaped attachment that goes on the front of the flash and serves to narrow the output into a smaller area. You can buy them for not too much money, or you can make your own with some heavy paper or cardboard. A grid is a honeycomb-looking thing that goes on the front of the flash and narrows the flash output even further, to a very narrow round beam of light. A grid is something you might use if you wanted to light only someone's face and not the rest of their body. While not strictly a light modifier, bouncing flash is extremely effective too for softening and diffusing light. In a normal room with a white, low ceiling, bouncing a hot-shoe flash off the ceiling makes the light very diffuse and omnidirectional, giving a similar appearance to having a ceiling light right above your camera. You can also buy fold-up reflective panels in various sizes, most being double-sided, offering white or silver for bouncing and gold for warming the light up a little. You can use these to reflect spilled light from your main light into fill light for areas your flash doesn't hit, or to reflect available light into somewhere you need a little extra. You can also change the color of your flash by putting sheets of colored plastic called 'gels' in front of them. There are hundreds to choose from, Rosco being a common brand. You can get free sample books at most theatrical lighting stores. Really, no huge wall of text can tell you how to light something, because it's different for every subject and personal style. People seem to have a lot of lighting questions, so ask away. THIS IS THE LAND OF EDITS Edit 1: Selecting dedicated hot-shoe flashes. I've seen too many people (any is too many) consider buying an SB-400 recently. Now, for most brands (all I can think of, actually), at the bottom of the line is a terrible flash, then a decent flash or two, then their flagship. You can tell which one is the lower end because it looks nothing like the rest of them - or any other well-designed flash. The terrible flash is tempting, being $70-100 cheaper than the one above it. Do not buy it. It is, in the case of the SB400, pretty much just a pop-up flash that has a halfassed bounce head. It fills the needs of some people (hi ken), but if you clicked on a thread called "The Photographic Lighting Thread", you are not one of those people. Do yourself a favor and save up for an extra week. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Dec 16, 2008 |
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Dec 14, 2008 04:50
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I'd like to add that, as a studio portrait photographer, hot lights loving suck. Way, way too much heat. It's not too bad if you're doing a single session lasting 15-20 minutes and that's it, but if you're running all day, every day, like we do in my studio at this time of year, it gets way too hot, even with multiple fans running. It's bad when your subjects are sweating. We recently switched to all strobes and the difference is amazing.
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Dec 14, 2008 04:56
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ConfusedUs posted:I'd like to add that, as a studio portrait photographer, hot lights loving suck. Way, way too much heat. It's not too bad if you're doing a single session lasting 15-20 minutes and that's it, but if you're running all day, every day, like we do in my studio at this time of year, it gets way too hot, even with multiple fans running. As an aside, if someone wants to gently caress around with hot lights, get some cheap lovely used theatrical lights instead of some overpriced eBay nonsense. You're probably going to end up using strobes anyways, so don't spend too much.
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Dec 14, 2008 04:58
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Does anyone have any experience with the Alien Bees vagabond II power pack? I'm highly interested in a set of portable studio strobes, and I've heard good things.
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Dec 14, 2008 05:11
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ConfusedUs posted:Does anyone have any experience with the Alien Bees vagabond II power pack? No experience, but I've heard good things too (apart from that one crazy guy who think Paul Buff is trying to kill us all). My AB400 should be here in a couple days, at which point I'll post a trip report here. First on the list: seeing what it will set fire to, and how far it will throw at night.
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Dec 14, 2008 05:26
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SoundMonkey posted:No experience, but I've heard good things too (apart from that one crazy guy who think Paul Buff is trying to kill us all). My AB400 should be here in a couple days, at which point I'll post a trip report here. First on the list: seeing what it will set fire to, and how far it will throw at night. Are you getting it with a vagabond? I'm sure the lights are awesome but I want a report on the portable power source.
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Dec 14, 2008 05:32
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ConfusedUs posted:Are you getting it with a vagabond? I am not, just a plain ol' AB400 (white). Knowing me, I'll cobble together some kind of portable power system and end up breaking the strobe.
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Dec 14, 2008 05:33
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This is very informative, thanks! As it stands now, there really is nowhere to get a well-rounded overview of lighting in such a short and comprehensive writeup. You either have to pull individual pieces out of gently caress-all, or start at somewhere like Strobist and work your way up to the end which is very tedious. In my naivety, I didn't realize that grids were meant to restrict the light to such a degree. I thought grids gave a checkered-type pattern as an effect. I didn't realize they could restrict the light to things like just a person's face. My current lighting setup is: Nikon SB-800 x2 Nikon SB-R200 x2 ProMaster 16" Studio Cool Light (continuous) Nikon SU-800 Commander to trigger things via CLS. (Also in my naivety and rush to get things done, I have foolishly never figured out how to activate more than two groups at once with this thing.  Anyone know how?)LumiQuest Snoot 43" white shoot-through umbrella Some dipshit 24" shoot-through or whatever since they didn't have the one I wanted and it was cheap 43" white silver bounce umbrella 43" black gold bounce umbrella (which I have never used) Interchangeable collapsible reflector ...I find lighting very tricky. It's just a guessing game with me to a large part. I watched Zoowick's lighting video earlier and was pretty impressed with his seeming ease for setting everything up. I want to get softboxes like he has but they're so goddamned expensive. Wow I'm rambling. Why don't I just sum up what I'm trying to say:
I have more questions that I will probably ask later when I remember them.
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Dec 14, 2008 06:08
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Mannequin posted:
Softboxes diffuse like an umbrella but they're still a bit directional, which sometimes is what you want. I've heard some less-than-good things about the Paul C Buff softboxes, but people do like to whine a lot. Pretty much practice, yeah. Practice with a friend or a houseplant or something. When you're actually shooting someone, that's not really the time to try random poo poo that probably won't work, unless they're cool with that and it's not a serious shoot. That's more the time for things you've tried on your own and you know work. At least that's how I feel. The rosco stuff comes in 20x24" sheets for like six dollars, or huge rolls for a lot. You can get a sample book, which you should, because they have a couple hundred colors and it's really hard to get an idea for what they look like without actually shining your flashlight through them or something. If you really can't find a sample book, shoot me a PM with your address and I'll send you one of the several dozen I have.
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Dec 14, 2008 06:18
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I might as well post about this, since I had some trouble understanding it when I first started using off-camera lighting. Only two things influence exposure when your main subject is lit by a flash - ISO and aperture. Aperture because it limits how much light gets to the sensor, and ISO because it changes how sensitive the sensor is. Shutter speed has no effect on exposure for subjects who are lit only (or mainly) by the flash. It sounds weird, but it makes sense. When the flash fires, it emits a certain amount of light in an extremely short time. It emits the same amount of light every time. As long as the shutter is open when the flash fires, it will look the same no matter what shutter speed you use. Shutter speed DOES have an effect on things not lit by the flash of course, so you can vary your shutter speed to control how much the ambient light contributes to exposure (typically of your background), while not changing the exposure of the flash-lit subject. You can use this to turn a white wall black - turn the flash power up, set a small aperture, then crank the shutter speed up until anything not lit by the flash is black. Of course, stay within your camera's sync speed, which is usually 1/200 or 1/250. Since with old manually controlled flashes or off-camera flashes the camera sometimes doesn't know there's a flash involved, it will happily let you go over your sync speed, and it will be pretty terrible. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Dec 14, 2008 |
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Dec 14, 2008 11:32
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Maybe a better way to look at it is considering shutter speed as a tool to balance ambient and strobe light. After having used all the fancy lights in a studio quite a couple years ago I just can't be arsed doing complicated things with cheap lights. The detail definition you get out of something like an umbrella with a diffuser sheet is so far beyond what you get out of hotshoe stuff. I've been loving around with my LX3 for a couple of days now when shooting people I catch myself thinking up lighting schemes that could probably look fantastic, but really, when you're having a blast with friends you don't want 50kg of poo poo with you. evil_bunnY fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Dec 14, 2008 |
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Dec 14, 2008 15:40
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SoundMonkey posted:I've heard some less-than-good things about the Paul C Buff softboxes, but people do like to whine a lot. The original Buff boxes were really awful. The newer ones are better, but spending the same or even less money on a Photoflex box will get you better (IMO) construction and a 5-year warranty.
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Dec 14, 2008 17:45
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I shoot exclusively with strobes so here are my thoughts from reading over this thread: hot shoe vs. monolight vs. powerpack - Each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Hot shoe flashes are extremely portable, run off AA batteries, you can put them places you can't put other lights, and are relatively cheap but the quality of light is not that great (they have tiny little "|" shaped bulb whereas larger strobes have a huge "O" bulb, makes a huge difference in most cases), your options are limited with modifiers, there are no modeling lights, and they are not very powerful. Pack and head systems (Profoto, Broncolor, etc.) have insane amounts of power, have all the controls in one central place (the pack), packs can be used as sandbags, the heads are extremely lightweight, almost always have modeling lights, and you only need one trigger (PW or whatever) per pack. The downsides are they limit where you can place lights, some have limits on how you can split up the power (ie. you can't drop one head 1/3rd stop by itself without redistributing the power among the other heads), and are usually pretty expensive. I prefer packs for working in the studio. Monolights (White Lightning / AB, Travelites, etc.) basically have all the circuitry that is in the pack inside each head so you just plug each light into it's own socket. Upsides are you can put lights wherever you want without having to worry about the location of a pack, almost always have modeling lights, you have an extreme amount of control over the output of each head, you can distribute the heads among different breakers on location, and are in general more portable than pack/heads. Downsides are the heads themselves are heavy (makes your stand top heavy pretty quick), the controls are on the actual heads, and you need a trigger for each. I prefer monolights for on location work, which is mostly what I do - I own a bunch of White Lightnings. Hot lights loving suck and for still photography you shouldn't even really consider these an option unless you just happen to have a poo poo load of HMI lighting laying around for video work. Doing poo poo the ghetto way with work lights is almost not even worth it. I can't imagine that buying hot lights is any cheaper than just going with Alien Bees. ConfusedUs posted:Does anyone have any experience with the Alien Bees vagabond II power pack? I have owned the I and II. The I served me well for about 2 years before it died (PCB just sent me a version II for the cost of shipping). The II is a huge improvement, it recycles a lot faster, is built better, lasts really long (don't think I've ever run out of juice actually, even with multiple heads firing for a few hours), and it is easy to switch out the actual battery part so you can have multiples for a long shoot. For location work they are great, I use mine almost every time I shoot - actually last night I used it to stick a head in an elevator which otherwise wouldn't have been possible. Makes a great stand weight too. I highly recommend it. Mannequin posted:In my naivety, I didn't realize that grids were meant to restrict the light to such a degree. I thought grids gave a checkered-type pattern as an effect. I didn't realize they could restrict the light to things like just a person's face. I use grids more than anything else. If you point a head with a bare reflector at a wall it will light up the whole wall. Grids restrict and "focus" it down (that's how I think of it in my head) to a smaller spread, so a wide grid like 60 degrees will give you a more manageable source to point at something or a 10 degree one will let you "spotlight" a single thing. They are also a pretty hard light so they are good for adding things like really controlled rims. quote:When are softboxes a necessary part of the lighting equation? I want to get some but they're expensive and I probably don't need them, especially since I don't really have people to photograph. (What are the good brands? Alien Bees?) They're never "necessary". I own softboxes but pretty much never use them, it's all about how you work and what you're trying to achieve. I think a lot of people just go straight to pointing softboxes at things because that's what you're "supposed to do" which to me is boring light. Personally I think they are way overused and that there are more interesting ways of achieving the same result. Plus they are a bitch to setup on location. I would stay away from everything PCB makes except the lights, my experience has been that everything else is cheap crap that they just add on for people who don't want to do the research and buy from somewhere else. I use Photoflex and they are good for the money, if I used them more I would get something nicer. quote:How do I improve on my lighting? Just practice? I feel like I've been practicing for a while now and I still don't completely get it. Personally I think reading about lighting and looking at Strobist diagrams is pointless. The Strobist obsession with diagrams and exact instructions is so loving retarded, you can look at a million diagrams and still not know how to light things for poo poo. What really helped me when I was learning was to get tearsheets and ads from magazines and try to recreate it PERFECTLY, even if it takes hours of fiddling. Plus you can pick things that have light you are interested in, and if you are solving lighting problems that a pro already did you are building that kind of high-level skillset. It's helpful because instead of following some amateurs diagram from Flickr you are working through the same problems that a professional already did. That's what lighting really is - problem solving - which is why diagrams are useless, it's like looking at the answer to a math problem without working out the steps yourself. Actually taking a situation, having an end goal in mind, and then working through it is the most helpful thing you can do. When I do shoots now I still follow that process for getting the image - first start with an idea or image in my head and then work toward resolving that with whatever resources I have. Google pre-visualization and what Ansel Adams had to say about it, that is one of the most important things to being a photographer IMO. I would also recommend moving up from hot shoe flashes because it will give you more flexibility and control. You can still use the small flashes in conjunction with other lights (I do this a lot) but by themselves they don't give you many options. evil_bunnY posted:Maybe a better way to look at it is considering shutter speed as a tool to balance ambient and strobe light. This is how it was taught to me and how I think of it in my head when I do shoots: you are really doing two exposures at once, one is the flash exposure which happens at the speed of light (more or less) and one is the ambient light which is slower. You start by figuring out the aperture for the flash, then you either dial the shutter up or down to bring in the ambient. brad industry fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Dec 14, 2008 |
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Dec 14, 2008 22:04
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Without having anything else to guide me, I dug on strobist stuff for awhile. What I really think beginners should realize is he isn't out to teach all of lighting, he is going after a very small specialized way of doing things that has alot of downsides (but upsides of mostly being mobile and cheap). I really wish I had just spent my money on a monolight, umbrella, and 1 nice hot-shoe flash. You can work around small-light problems and can be fun, but dude half the time I wouldn't have to deal with them if I just had a bigger more powerful source to begin with. Edit: VVV I'm agreeing with you on the matter brad industry, you just said it better. Even if he isn't "This is the One True way", alot of his devotees take it as such. It's studying his developed technical style which solves his specific problems without branching out, like only studying Physics and skipping over the natural science and early math. Jahoodie fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 14, 2008 |
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Dec 14, 2008 22:18
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How do you figure out what modifiers are compatible with what lights? I may just be retarded but when I go to B&H I can't ever figure out which things are going to attach correctly to my Alienbees. Is there some kind of chart somewhere, or will everything just go on everything else? Also, any specific advice on grids, as in, which to get as a first one? As of now I have umbrellas and a brolly box that I really like, but it's pretty much only good for straightforward kinda boring stuff. edit: on the other hand I'm about a month away from starting a semester long internship/assistantship with a studio/location photographer, so maybe I should just watch a learn. TsarAleksi fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Dec 14, 2008 |
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Dec 14, 2008 22:34
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I don't have a vendetta against the Strobist guy or anything even though I knock him a lot - I just think it is wise to take everything he says with a huge grain of salt. You have to remember where he is coming from - he used to go out and shoot several portraits a day, with zero budget / crew, never worked in the studio or had much experience with other types of equipment, and the only things that mattered were how fast and portable it was. For what he did his solutions are really great, but he comes off as "this is the One True Way" which is bullshit. If he had been shooting advertising or something it would be different, but (no offense to PJ guys, I mean this in the nicest way possible) journalism is pretty low-end work conceptually and when your poo poo is printed at a ridiculously high screen in a newspaper or a 72dpi web image then you don't have the same considerations as say, an editorial photographer shooting a portrait for a magazine where you are not in and out in 5 minutes, you have a week to plan it, and a week to do post and edit. I'm not saying it's the wrong or right way to do it, just that it has different goals, different end product, different ways of working and approaching a problem. I like reading the blog but he has kind of tunnel vision on how things should be done. Of course now he is selling seminars and adspace instead of shooting so it makes sense why he puts so much emphasis on things like diagrams - you can sell it.
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Dec 14, 2008 22:35
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Woops meant to edit instead of reply again.quote:How do you figure out what modifiers are compatible with what lights? I may just be retarded but when I go to B&H I can't ever figure out which things are going to attach correctly to my Alienbees. Is there some kind of chart somewhere, or will everything just go on everything else? All umbrellas are the same, so are softboxes (you just need the appropriate speedring). Other things you need to figure out what kind of mount your lights have and if whatever modifier you are buying will fit it. For grids just buy the AB ones, they snap into the standard reflector they come with (and they are decent quality, grids are simple and kind of hard to gently caress up). Get a set of different degrees - I think I have a 10, 30, 45, and 60 (?) and I tend to use the tighter ones more but that is just how I work. I think AB / WL stuff is also compatible with Broncolor modifiers but I would google that before buying anything.
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Dec 14, 2008 22:43
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I actually forgot to mention Strobist in the OP, and I was going to. I'd recommend that anyone read it, but bear in mind that it is a blog about LEARNING lighting using small strobes and DIY light mods. There is nothing wrong with ghettoing things up in your basement just to see how they look - I made a grid out of drinking straws just to see what a grid looked like. It's also important to know that while the guy who runs Strobist might be able to get away with showing up to shoots with cereal-box snoots, you probably can't. The DIY poo poo is fine for learning, but when you start needing it to use on shoots, but whatever the pro version is. It's not like snoots and grids are expensive - Honl sells each for like twenty dollars. Brad Industry and I don't really see eye to eye on small strobe use, but I think we can agree that Strobist is not the place to look if you want to know how to set up a studio shoot. The same PRINCIPLES apply, but studio strobes are not just big expensive hotshoe flashes.
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Dec 14, 2008 22:56
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The funny thing is that you can buy an Aliebee monolight for about the same price as a nice Canon or Nikon hotshoe flash.
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Dec 14, 2008 22:58
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TsarAleksi posted:The funny thing is that you can buy an Aliebee monolight for about the same price as a nice Canon or Nikon hotshoe flash. I made this decision not two days ago. Counting shipping and tax, the AB400 came in about $40 less than an SB800. Then I looked at my camera shelf, saw the six hot-shoe flashes, wondered what the hell I was thinking, and ordered an Alien Bee. Now I won't have to make awkward small-talk while my flash is recycling too.
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Dec 14, 2008 23:03
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Yeah it makes no sense to go with hotshoe flashes because of price. I think people just assume smaller = cheaper. I know PLENTY of professionals who use AB's (in fact I know a lot of people who have Profoto packs in their studio and a set of AB's for location) - they are solid lights, inexpensive, great customer service, and they just give you so many more options than small flashes. Small flashes are great for a lot of situations but it's hard to beat the versatility of a monolight. If you have the extra money get the White Lightning's, they are built like tanks and I think the extra features are worth it.
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Dec 14, 2008 23:17
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brad industry posted:Yeah it makes no sense to go with hotshoe flashes because of price. I think people just assume smaller = cheaper. I know PLENTY of professionals who use AB's (in fact I know a lot of people who have Profoto packs in their studio and a set of AB's for location) - they are solid lights, inexpensive, great customer service, and they just give you so many more options than small flashes. Small flashes are great for a lot of situations but it's hard to beat the versatility of a monolight. I have no regrets about my small flash use, but drat do you see the limitations pretty quick. From 15 feet away with a grid, I actually had no option other than full power on my 285HV. Even ignoring the recycle times, it feels pretty cramped when you have nowhere to go with flash power. There's no way I'm going to leave the house without a hotshoe flash in my bag, but I see them getting put on hair light duty pretty quick once my AB400 gets here.
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Dec 14, 2008 23:57
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hotshoe flashes are the best solution for things you can carry on your camera, things you can run off small batteries, and things you attach to walls and other remote locations. If you do not need one of those three things then hotshoe flashes are probably the worst choice for your application.
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Dec 15, 2008 00:52
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brad industry posted:If you have the extra money get the White Lightning's, they are built like tanks and I think the extra features are worth it.
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Dec 15, 2008 03:37
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You goddamn bastards. Now I want to buy an Alien Bee.
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Dec 15, 2008 03:46
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Brad: Can you list what you use for location work and, more importantly, show how you haul it around? Do you have some kind of rolling case? I know you're down on family photography and the like, but I've been doing it for five years and I love it--and I'd like to expand to more location work. I just need to find a portable and versatile easy lighting setup.
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Dec 15, 2008 03:47
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The Fomo posted:What are the extra features the White Lightnings have over the AlienBees monolights? I was thinking about buying another small strobe, but this thread has me reconsidering. No plastic, couple of extra stops in range, better modeling lights, I think a few other minor things. The AB's are basically stripped down versions of the WL line. ConfusedUs posted:Brad: This isn't everything and it's a little disorganized because I had a shoot yesterday:  I use Pelican cases which are heavy but cheap/awesome/have wheels. For stands and modifiers I use Calumet stand bags and I have a Hensel soft case for my beauty dish (not shown, I also have another smaller Pelican case for my ringlight which a friend borrowed). The "GRIDS" thing is a Calumet pouch, I use one for grids and one for batteries/cables/spare bulbs/PW poo poo. That cylinder bag on the left has reflectors, speed rings, and power cables - I have 2 other ones (one for extension cords, one for random grip poo poo and diffusion material). Sometimes I use a Lowepro backpack for the camera stuff that's lighter, depends on what I need to bring or how much I think it'll get thrown around. One person can unload all this + my other crap from a car in two trips.
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Dec 15, 2008 04:39
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^^Nice kit. I was going to point out that the Vagabond is basically a motorcycle battery and an inverter in a bag, but I guess by the time you add a charger and make it all relatively rugged and functional, that's not a bad deal. Z fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Dec 15, 2008 |
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Dec 15, 2008 05:28
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I'm about to pull the trigger on this http://www.alienbees.com/beginner.html but with the 400. From what I understand (and examples I've seen on flickr etc) the 400 is more than enough light for what I'll be doing now, and my plan is to add another 400 or 800 later on when I get to a level it's needed. Does this sound like a reasonable plan? For modifiers, I'm going to stick with the included umbrella for the time being and experiment with it, then see where to go from there. Again, anything you guys with experience would recommend against this?
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Dec 15, 2008 06:45
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Okay, here's one for you. I'm actually going in the other direction as you guys and looking for a really small, low-powered flash. Those of you who have been following the other photo threads know that I used a 285HV at 1/16 power with 4 layers of paper over the bulb, so really I'd only need a flash roughly 1/16 to 1/32 the power of a 285HV. It has to be controllable manually since I plan on using it with radio triggers. Ideally, it would be small enough to fit in a coat pocket. The Sunpak RD2000 and PF20XD look like potential candidates. Any thoughts or suggestions? RD2000: http://www.sunpak.jp/english/products/rd2000/index.html PF20XD: http://www.sunpak.jp/english/products/pf20xd/index.html
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Dec 15, 2008 07:05
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HPL posted:Okay, here's one for you. I'm actually going in the other direction as you guys and looking for a really small, low-powered flash. Those of you who have been following the other photo threads know that I used a 285HV at 1/16 power with 4 layers of paper over the bulb, so really I'd only need a flash roughly 1/16 to 1/32 the power of a 285HV. It has to be controllable manually since I plan on using it with radio triggers. Ideally, it would be small enough to fit in a coat pocket. The Sunpak RD2000 and PF20XD look like potential candidates. Any thoughts or suggestions? If you're okay with soldering, there's a 285HV mod that gets you down to 1/1024 power. EDIT: Also, the Sunpak 433D is less powerful than the 285HV, and goes down to 1/32. Bottom Liner posted:For modifiers, I'm going to stick with the included umbrella for the time being and experiment with it, then see where to go from there. Again, anything you guys with experience would recommend against this? If you're just starting out, that'll be fine. Also, if the AB400 is what you can afford, get that. While mine hasn't arrived yet, I have used one, and the light output from it is something you can't really fathom if you've only used hotshoe flashes. SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Dec 15, 2008 |
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Dec 15, 2008 08:16
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ConfusedUs posted:Does anyone have any experience with the Alien Bees vagabond II power pack? I'm not up on model names, but we have a couple of AlienBees at the office studio. I haven't used them much, but my boss thinks they're the proverbial bee's knees. They're at least as good as the Calumet monolights, and a lot cheaper, and they don't have the risk of burning holes in the floor like the Novatrons we also use. Protip: Don't plug/unplug heads while the pack is plugged in. It WILL melt the connectors into a puddle, set the floor on fire, and probably kill you. There are scorch marks all over the wood floors of the school photo studio from people slagging the big packs (edit: Speedotrons, they were). In the field, we roll with Nikon SB-800s on camera, pointed straight up with a white card rubber-banded to the back. If you must use on-camera flash, get one with a tilt head and do that -- it's the poor man's softbox. We could take the monolights out on location, but  .My favorite lighting is flashbulbs. Awfully hard to find a camera with M-sync these days, though.  Two stops brighter than the sun, in a package the size/weight of an appliance bulb. Single-use, but when you need to literally turn night into day (or get that weird underexposed-bright-sunlit background effect), it's worth it. And the sound of a magnesium flashbulb burning is awesome. Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Dec 15, 2008 |
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Dec 15, 2008 09:06
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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I love you all for starting/posting this thread. I'm finishing up my first of 2 lighting classes in my 2 yr AA program. The light bug has bit hard and it has really started to make me think about an equipment investment. At school we used a Speedotron system that could kill a person if it fell on them. There was a smaller pack with 2 heads that got loaned out from time to time, but even that was super heavy and more dangerous than a shot put. The Broncolor self contained units they had were the way to go for taking stuff home, but there was a big lack of available accessories for them. If I were to price out a decent starter kit/setup that doesn't break the bank for some self-contained units, with decent accessory support and that won't die in a year, what manufacturers should I look into? I saw Alien Bees mentioned and will look into them, but are there other reliable companies if I was looking to put a comprehensive list together? I also live within driving distance to B&H, am I going to get a better deal with Calumet as a student even with the shipping cost?
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Dec 15, 2008 14:49
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The OP could mention more of the daylight balanced CFLs that are widely available/cheap. The advantage they have for constant light is much lower heat, and much better color temp. I use a spiderlite 3 (three bulb configuration of 150 watt CFLs, and you can run one, two or three of the bulbs at once), and I'm getting a 12" x 16" softbox for it. I regret buying it instead of a smaller alien bee, but in retrospect I like having a constant light source, I just wish I'd bought the AB first, then this for flexibility. But, I posted here because there wasn't much mention of the balanced CFLs, which are a much better ghetto choice than work lights. You can buy a modest setup at home depot for smaller work and it's a good choice for small light box work, for example. A couple of cheap desk lamps with flex neck and 150 watt (relative) cfl bulbs is gonna be very, very cheap and suitable for that ebay photography. Also, re: reading about lighting....I think the book, Light: Science and Magic is a great source, simply because it's practical discussion about why light works the way it does, with less emphasis on how you create the specific light source. torgeaux fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Dec 15, 2008 |
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Dec 15, 2008 14:59
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For people looking into AlienBees, something to consider is that there is a 10% discount off of your entire order if you are a U.S. student. This applies to all students, not just photography/art majors. Scroll down a bit on this page: http://www.alienbees.com/specials.html Sorry non-U.S. students; I guess you're not special enough 
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Dec 15, 2008 15:28
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I'm thinking about getting The DigiBee with one B400 and one B800, though I have a couple questions... With that package, how do you attach the umbrellas to the lightstand / strobe? With hotshoe setups you have an umbrella swivel that you attach the umbrella to, what is the equivalent here? It was mentioned that the accessories at alienbees aren't that great. Is it worth it to just buy the strobes on this site and get the umbrellas / stands / etc elsewhere? What is the best method for triggering the strobes wirelessly? As for remote power packs, is the vegabond the best solution? Is there something cheaper that isn't crap? I've been looking at getting something like this for months, going to go through with it probably in January. You guys have convinced me to go with alien bees over Vivatar 285HV's. Very excited.
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Dec 15, 2008 15:56
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Bottom Liner posted:I'm about to pull the trigger on this An umbrella is an umbrella, but I have no idea how nice/sturdy/light/compact the included stand is. I've got one of those five-section Bogen lightstands Strobist is always going on about and I love it. The thing is tiny, weighs next to nothing, but the legs are sturdy and you can sandbag the gently caress out of it (or, as I usually do, have my assistant hold it).
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Dec 15, 2008 17:59
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SoundMonkey posted:If you're okay with soldering, there's a 285HV mod that gets you down to 1/1024 power. That's not the point. I like my 285HVs, but I want something smaller I can keep in a pocket. I was just giving an example of the kind of power I want. I don't need a "turn night into day" kind of thing, just a mild fill light.
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Dec 15, 2008 18:02
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Luk3 posted:I've been looking at getting something like this for months, going to go through with it probably in January. You guys have convinced me to go with alien bees over Vivatar 285HV's. Very excited. Eventually, it wouldn't hurt to have a couple of small shoe flashes with an optical slave of some sort to use as accent lighting here and there. Throwing a small flash with a combo of red and full orange gels into a fireplace to simulate a fire can really help spice up a scene, for example. This is why I don't regret purchasing a couple of small flashes--I can always find a use for more light, even after I head into the land of stobes.
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Dec 15, 2008 18:03
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 12:16 |
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Luk3 posted:I'm thinking about getting The DigiBee with one B400 and one B800, though I have a couple questions... I can answer 2 of these: AlienBees have a hole for an umbrella built into the strobe itself. Also, one easy method for triggering them is their built-in photoslave. They'll fire when they detect another flash. This is nice if you already own a smaller flash and poverty wizards, as you can use the small flash for fill, rim light, or hair light and trigger the Bee with its flash. If you don't already have a small flash and/or poverty wizards, you've got a few wireless options. The aforementioned poverty wizards, or Cactus radio triggers are only $20 for a trigger and receiver set, but they have terrible build quality and are not 100% reliable -- you'll have misfires occasionally. From there, you can go for Skyports, CyberSyncs, or the industry standard Pocket Wizards. dakana fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Dec 15, 2008 |
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Dec 15, 2008 19:38
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