Lighting Equipment

[RobbieKB]

It occurred to me that there is rarely much on PH about lighting - I guess because there are a lot of landscape photographers.

I'm a huge fan of portraiture and it is really the only photography I want to do these days. My biggest downfall is lighting, however. I make do with Canon flash gun, ring flash and reflectors but that's very limiting.

I want to buy some continuous lights and stands and I was wondering if anyone had any advice. I don't have a lot of money to play with. If I did I'd probably be after the Westcott Ice Light x 3 as the quality of light they seem to offer is nearly unparalleled. The thing is, they are - when push comes to shove - just LEDs and there must be a cheaper way of mimicking the light.

Any advice/suggestions/tips very welcome!

[MartinP]

Any reason for wanting continuous lighting?

Personally, I've never been much of a fan of continuous lighting for portraits, apart from the occasional use of a portable video light for portraits at weddings. I always find myself struggling to get enough light out of them, or big tungsten lights in a studio just get so hot.

How about going the strobist route, some cheap radio triggers, Chinese flash guns and umbrellas would work well and not make too big a hole in your bank account. Also the quality of light you could get and the flexibility for use with modifiers would beat those Ice Lights! You could then add studio flash heads, softboxes etc to the set up as budget/enthusiasm allows.

[RobbieKB]

Thanks for the reply Martin. I'm not sure to be fair, I've just always thought they get better results. A lot of the portraiture I admire seems to use constant lighting. That's not to say flashes wouldn't be as good or better in some cases.

I have a very cheap Chinese remote trigger but I had a bad experience with cheap Chinese flashes. I bought a ring flash and it wouldn't sync above about 1/100 which was rubbish. Do you have any links to the sort of equipment you're talking about?

[MartinP]

Well you do get the advantage with continuous lights that you shoot what you see, unlike flash (unless you have modelling lights).

Lots of flash kit reviews and inspiration to be found here: http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/

Until I upgraded to PocketWizards, I used YongNuo RF602 radio triggers, which were always reliable. I think their latest triggers even include TTL/remote power control capability. I haven't used any of their flash guns but they seem to get good reviews from the strobist community and the models range from £40 to £100 new on Amazon. Check what (if any) limitations they have for full TTL metering and max sync speed, but there's always a compromise to be made somewhere...

[Simpo Two]

People can be afraid of flash, but it's more powerful (better able to work with a wide range of modifiers and/or at decent range) and with practice, like all things, you can roughly predict what will happen before you start. From there you fine tune to the result you want.

[Speed addicted]

I'm using Youguno triggers and two flashes for random stuff, there is a decent studio near me that I use when I can so I haven't used them a great deal but they've been completely reliable so far.
A bit clunky compared to my Canon flash but they are about a quarter of the price, I got mine used on ebay along with lots of stands and modifiers.

The triggers have been fine too, no problems at all. I use these quite a bit for night shots and lightpainting as well as flash control.

[budfox]

I've got Lencarta equipment for portrait use and I love it. www.lencarta.co.uk

A pair of 200x flash heads, a couple of brollies, stands, radio trigger and a reflector.

Not exactly 'budget' equipment but I weighed up flashguns at £50 with flash heads at £110 and decided that the extra £120 was well worth it.

[MikeGTi]

I found that reading through The Speedlighter's Handbook was a real help, also a guy called David Hobby runs a site called Strobist.com- and also produced a tutorial DVD a while back, it's a great insight into how versatile small flashes can be when used in the correct way.

[DJWuk]

With the cost of flashguns costing so much these days, I actually beleue it's cheaper to go with proper studio lighting.

Haven't looked for a good 5 years now, but I invested in some Elimchrom D-lite 4's and was very happy. Could have for away with d-lite 2's though.

[ian in lancs]

We've been using two sets of these in the studio for 2yrs with no problems - they've been hammered and just bounced back. Just had the odd stripped thumbscrew on the stands. Easily fixed though.

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/TSL-2009/1500Ws-Studio-Fl...

Cant be beaten on price / performance. Everything you need in a handy travel case.