Night shots of cars - strobe light - where to purchase?

[DanielJames]

Afternoon all

Basically, I want to replicate this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-FqBneoxi0

But where can I purchase the light gun like what the guy is using, or does anyone have any other recommendations?

The car I want to use to test is a Techno Violet BMW, it's a colour that needs light to look good.

Suggestions welcome!


Thanks
Dan

[Simpo Two]

According to the soundtrack it's an Alien Bee B800:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/alien-bees-b800-/2513639...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ALIEN-BEES-PRO-PHOTO-FLA...


Note that what the Americans call a strobe is a flashgun; what we call a strobe is a rapidly pulsing light

For the above you could use any decent flashgun; more expensive ones will have a true strobe function as well.

Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 25th October 16:46

[The_Jackal]

Yes, I have seen videos of people doing that technique just running around the car with a flash gun.

[Magic919]

As well as a flash, you can do some light painting with a video lamp. Some of the LED ones are quite good for this.

[anonymous-user]

Firstly I would like to stress that I am crap at this strobist/lightpainting stuff and the below photos are only the second time I did it, so my advice is limited, but...

If you just want to start doing this kind of lighting then you need nothing more than a cheap manual flash/speedlight such one of these for around £25, which is exactly what I used to light the below:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/YN-460-Speedlite-Olympus-P...

Yongnuo 460ii manual speedlight.





For technique, you can either set the exposure to 30 seconds or whatever and just walk round hand holding the speedlight and triggering it manually using the 'Pilot' button like the video you post, or like I do which is to put the speedlight on a light stand and move it round the car shooting separate frames for each flash of the light then layer the images later in photoshop.

for the layering technique you will need some wireless triggers so that the flash goes off when you press the shutter (or remote control) on your camera:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Yongnuo-RF-603-Wirel...

You can get started in all this for about £50 all in for the speedlight and the wireless triggers... there's no need to spend any more unless you are getting really serious!

[DanielJames]

Just about to order the Yongnuo, thanks for all the replies. Will post up my results