Home Studio Lighting?

[RJ1]

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!

[MJS]

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.