Hi guys,

I'm a professional videographer who's love is stills. I have a Canon digiatl rebel and love to take pictures of my kids so I want to setup a home studio with strobes to take portraits of them and family. But before I ask the question of what's a bargain kit, I will tell you that I have used continous lighting for now. I have two 250 watt lights with softboxes and a black material I hang on the wall. I also have a 430ex flash on the camera. The pictures come out alright but the focus always seems a bit soft. The faces come out a bit dark so I fix them in Photoshop. My question, do I need to buy strobes? Should I change the background color, since they are for kids? Do I need more light output? Please help me with some good details. Thanks!

There are those that can successfully combine hot and strobe to good effect, I'm not one of them. You'll be agle to appreciate the I posted on Help: What's wrong with my lighting. I'd suggest playing around with the hot lights for the time being. There is a guy named A.C. Armstrong who posts a lot of amazing stuff on Viewfinder using Hot lights. I personally use a pair of Alien Bee 1600's with umbrellas for studio work and a few SB800's in the field for head shots, or 3/4 informal shots if needed.

Good luck.