Continuos lighting kit, softbox or umbrella?

davidh6781

davidh6781

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I'm purchasing a continuous light kit however what would be better, a soft box kit or an umbrella kit?

Thank you
 
I prefer umbrella with cont lighting as want to disperse the light as much as possible as cont lighting can be bright and you don't want the subject exspecially if its a person to be blinded plus it causes the pupils to shrink which don't look good in portraits
 
Ok thank you, so a softbox would not disperse the light as much? It was mainly to light a white muslin background but give off some light to aid the light in the room.
 
Why continuous. Are you using video? If not, studio flash are generally far better....
 
It's to light the BG, at the min I don't have studio flash money due to been made redundant and sa mortgage to pay but I do have a off ca,era flash with umbrella which I know isn't the best but it seems to get some results.
 
Studio flash isn't that expensive. It is significantly more flexible though (better consistency, cooler, more controllable). There are specific background light modifiers too (which are NOT softboxes).

I really suggest taking a look at the Lencarta Smartflash.
 
davidh6781 said:
It's to light the BG, at the min I don't have studio flash money due to been made redundant and sa mortgage to pay but I do have a off ca,era flash with umbrella which I know isn't the best but it seems to get some results.
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Flash is the better way, and mixing flash with continuous light is difficult. The main problem is the relative brightness, and while fluorescent continuous lights can seem very bright when you're sitting in front of them, actually they're not.

Even against a hot-shoe gun, you'll need to drop the shutter speed quite a long way to balance the exposures.
 
Hi David, I've been through the continuous and flash phases of the learning curve journey towards studio lights. Best I have got to date for spot on cheap colour accuracy, shot setup simplicity and a decent white background is continuous lighting through a softbox on the subject, and a translucent white (paper/shower curtain/whatever) background a ways behind the subject, carefully blasted with any old flash from behind, along with anything that will amplify the general flash intensity.

The flash 'light' simply becomes part of the background 'colour' once it goes off, the real important stuff is what you see in live view, with no flash involved

I'll probably get told off for saying that, but it works for me and I learned that that works the hard way, even though I don't understand it fully:)
 
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