Lighting Sets

Wife and I took the baby to the mall for portraits and totally regret it. We paid $50 for pics that were below the quality we've been taking at home with my Canon EOS and printing at CostCo. We've decided to take our home photography to another level by purchasing a lighting set.

I noticed at the photo studio we went to, they had two main strobes and an overhead strobe in a softbox for fill. I found 3 light strobe sets for under $500 but I also found tungsten light sets for under $300. I am tempted to get the tungsten continous lights for the value but a friend of mine said that's only good if your subject stays still. It makes sense. I'll have to use faster film with tungsten but my enlargments may come out with a lot of grain.

What should I do? I would like to save some money with tungsten and I know I'll be able to use the tungsten for video projects. The strobe cost more but will work better for baby photography.

Suggestions? Brand suggestions? Store suggestions?

Thanks!

And we didn't post this question in the Studio and Lighting Forum for a reason. You could find that your answers are already in that forum. Look down towards the bottom of the forums listings to find it.

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Originally Posted by manacsa

Wife and I took the baby to the mall for portraits and totally regret it. We paid $50 for pics that were below the quality we've been taking at home with my Canon EOS and printing at CostCo. We've decided to take our home photography to another level by purchasing a lighting set.

I noticed at the photo studio we went to, they had two main strobes and an overhead strobe in a softbox for fill. I found 3 light strobe sets for under $500 but I also found tungsten light sets for under $300. I am tempted to get the tungsten continous lights for the value but a friend of mine said that's only good if your subject stays still. It makes sense. I'll have to use faster film with tungsten but my enlargments may come out with a lot of grain.

What should I do? I would like to save some money with tungsten and I know I'll be able to use the tungsten for video projects. The strobe cost more but will work better for baby photography.

Suggestions? Brand suggestions? Store suggestions?

Thanks!

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I have to agree with Peter that this should be in the studion lighting fourm, but since I have some time, I figure I will thro my 2 cents in. I don't think your subject staying still would be any dif. from strobes to hot lights. I would think that if your subject moves or changes positions, you will have to move your lights, no matter what the source is. I had a set of Lowel hotlights that I borrowd from the University to use for a lighting project. I really liked them but I wish they would have had a boom, so I could get light directly over my subject without have the stand in the way. I found a tungsten 3 light set of from Impact at B&H that I really liked for $200, but I haven't pulled the trigger on that purchase yet. You can check them out here If you have never used studio lighting, I would suggest using hotlights, for the simple reason that you can see your results instantly. Untill you get really good with lighting and knowing how shadows are going to fall, and where the highlights are going to be with strobes, I think the hotlights are the way to go. Sure you can test fire your strobes to see what happens, but can you get a good look of what the lights are doing in the split second that they fire? One thing about tungsten lighting to remember is the color tempurture is differant than a regular flash. Your flash has the same color temp as the sun, but tungsten is differant. If you go with tungsen lights, be sure to buy film that is made for tungsten lighting, or else you will get color shifts.

Ok, so maybe that's a little more than 2 cents worth :)
Hope it helps.
Michael

Remember most stobes do come with modeling lights so you see the light fall without having to fire the strobes off at all.

Sorry Mod, didn't see this forum earlier. Thanks for moving it to it's proper home.

Regarding a moving subject....my target subject would be babies and toddlers who don't follow instruction very well =) Since babies smile, move, smile, move all in 3 seconds, I assume strobes would give me the most light in that 1/60th of a second without having to use faster film.

With 200 ISO film, 4.0f, and 2 500W hot lamps, what kind of shutter speed are we looking at? I don't want to use faster film. So far, I have not been too happy with enlargments even with the higher price 35mm film at 400ISO.

Also since I saw this setup at the mall (Picture People, boo!), 2 main strobes and 1 overhead fill in, I thought it would be the way to go. Didn't realize the price difference between strobes and hot lamps.

Yes, look in the archives of this forum to find others asking the same question (and the replies to them).

What I can tell you is that subject movement WILL be a much bigger issue with hotlights IF (big if) the lights are not very powerful, as you will most likely have to use a slower shutter speed to get the proper exposure. Strobes will always freeze your subject...

I thought about the stobes freezing the image this morning on my way to work. That might be a better idea for squirmy kids.

I was recently deliberating this question myself, so I'm familiar with the $200 hot light kit you mentioned. In the end, for just a few bucks more, I went with a pair of Monolights - strobes with modeling lights.

What I got is a Britek kit, from 'photosource3' on eBay, for $215. This has a pair of Britek PS-200's - which are 120ws each, with 50-watt halogen modeling lamps. The kit also includes a pair of 7-ft. stands, reflective umbrellas, and all the necessary cords. If you plan to do much traveling with such a setup, another kit offers the same equipment plus travel cases for $259.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWA:IT

These aren't top-tier Pro stuff - but they don't carry the megabucks pricetag, either. They do seem very well built, though, and are definitely BRIGHT.

If you go with strobes, you'll also want a good Flash Meter, to obtain the proper exposure settings. In my case, I sprang for the Sekonic L-358, which actually cost a few bucks more than the flash kit. There are plenty of suitable alternatives, though, starting around $50.

The actual Flash is so quick - about 1/750th of a second - that you can use an even faster speed than 1/60 to stop action, provided your camera will 'flash sync' at those speeds. My Maxxum 7, for example, will flash sync up to 1/200 - and I just LOVE that.

With my whole living room (about 15 ft. square) as the shooting area, and this pair of Britek's supplying the lighting (100% of the effective light, according to the Sekonic meter), I'm getting readings of f/8-9.5 with the umbrella reflectors, and f/11-13 aiming them direct - throughout the sync range of 1/60 thru 1/200, using 160 film. There are plenty of variations on this - for example, lighting up a limited area instead of the whole room, would be significantly brighter yet - and different film speeds would have the familiar effect on exposure.