is it worth upgrading to studio flash kit if I already have lights?

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tikigod19

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Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and was wondering if I could have your thoughts on this.

I am getting into portrait white backdrop photography at home and until now have been using a 1000w video light bounced off of a wall, a 600w to light the background directly and then a flash gun attached to my nikon d90 bounced off of the ceiling. I struggle to get even light and was going to invest in a wireless trigger and umbrella to flash from an angle high up and it escalated from there... I'm now considering a flash kit with 3 x 180w lights with umbrellas and softboxes.

My question is should I consider buying umbrellas/softboxes to use with my existing lights (1000w, 800w, 600w) as I'm worried it'd be a waste to pay for flash lights and especially the stands carry case etc when I already have them. My only convern is whether my lights are TOO powerful.

When using one 600w light to light the white backdrop from an angle the light is not even and I'm wondering whether the best thing to do is to use another light the other side and/or put some sort of diffuser like a white umbrella on these lights.

Your input would be much appreciated...
David
 
Welcome to TP :)

If I were you I would forget video lights and get started afresh with a flash set up. For the white background look, you will need two lights on the background to get that even, and a third for the front main key light. Look at outfits from Bowens, Elinchrom and Lencarta.

There is a lot of stuff on here about shooting white backgrounds - have a browse :thumbs:
 
The other situation is think of a model standing for a few hours in front of 1000w lamp...

Free tanning session..

Studio lights use a low powered modelling light for direction of light and then the flash tube for exposure...

:thumbs:
 
Here's another way of explaining the power issue...

1000 watt continuous light -v- 1000 Ws flash head (I've used these just as an example, studio flash heads are usually around 200 - 300Ws)

The 1000 Ws studio flash head puts out as much flash energy (light power) in around 1/1000th second as the contintuous light puts out in 1 second. That's just theory though, because most of the energy consumed by the continuous light is output as heat, not light, so in reality you will need an exposure of around 3 seconds to get the same lens aperture as the 1000 Ws flash head. Do you have a supply of 6" nails handy to keep your models still?:)

In practice of course you won't use 6" nails and you won't use a 3 second exposure, you'll end up using either a very high ISO (which will affect image quality) or a very wide aperture and a slow shutter speed.
If the lens aperture with a 1000 Ws flash head is f/11 at a given ISO setting, then you will have to set something like f/2 on your camera and a shutter speed of 10th second to get the same amount of light from your 1000 watt continuous light.

Even if you find that acceptable, you'll still be left with the issues of heat, fire risk and the fact that you can't get any decent light shaping tools for continuous lights.

Please see this article on how to choose studio lights, on the Lencarta website
 
guys thats fantastic, thanks so much.So it looks like flash is the way to go. Heat isnt too much of an issue as its mainly for kids photography and they get ratty after about 20 minutes anyway... besides they're not my kids so I dont mind cookin them :)

However the issue of longer exposure is something I've experienced whilst using my studio lights in conjunction with a flash. If there is much movement I get an unacceptable blur. If I've understood what Garry has said then this will be better with a flash kit as the increased light burst in a shorter space of time will allow for a faster shutter speed to freeze the action...

Is that correct? Sorry... you can tell I know nothing...

Also I'll take on board the advice about the third flash light to double up on background lighting. I'd hoped I'd be able to get away with using one of my existing video lights for this but have read things about differences in colour temperature as well as the issues listed in this thread.

Plenty for me to think about... I'll read that article now.

Thanks again
 
tikigod19 said:
If I've understood what Garry has said then this will be better with a flash kit as the increased light burst in a shorter space of time will allow for a faster shutter speed to freeze the action...

Is that correct? Sorry... you can tell I know nothing...
Click to expand...

The shutter speed doesn't have much (if any) effect. The shutter just needs to be fully open at the time that the flash fires, there isn't usually enough ambient (existing) light present to make any difference at any normal shutter speed.

In other words, it's the very brief flash that freezes the movement and prevents camera shake, not the shutter
 
Not sure about your maths Garry :thinking: You gets tons of light out of a 1000w tungsten bulb for the two or three hours before they burn out. I used to use a couple of 500w photoflood bulbs and get handholdable 1/60sec at f/5.6 on good ol' FP4.

The problem is heat, incredible amounts of roasting hot burning melting unbearable heat :eek:
 
HoppyUK said:
Not sure about your maths Garry :thinking: You gets tons of light out of a 1000w tungsten bulb for the two or three hours before they burn out. I used to use a couple of 500w photoflood bulbs and get handholdable 1/60sec at f/5.6 on good ol' FP4.

The problem is heat, incredible amounts of roasting hot burning melting unbearable heat :eek:
Click to expand...

I think if you backwork it you'll find that the maths is right...
I started from the basis that the flash exposure (using a 1000 j flash) was f/11, therefore the flash head has to be much further from the subject than would normally be used and ended up with ... whatever I ended up with:) 1/10th @f/2 I think - with the tungsten light, which would of course be at the same distance as the flash head.

In practice, 1/60th at f/5.6 was about right with the light very close and the model melting...:lol:

I'm just so glad we have flash now
 
Garry Edwards said:
I think if you backwork it you'll find that the maths is right...
I started from the basis that the flash exposure (using a 1000 j flash) was f/11, therefore the flash head has to be much further from the subject than would normally be used and ended up with ... whatever I ended up with:) 1/10th @f/2 I think - with the tungsten light, which would of course be at the same distance as the flash head.

In practice, 1/60th at f/5.6 was about right with the light very close and the model melting...:lol:

I'm just so glad we have flash now
Click to expand...

But should you not be talking about luminosity and not watts? watts is power consumed and can have no bearing on light output. this is often got wrong with amps and volume of output from the speakers.
 
Chaz Photos said:
But should you not be talking about luminosity and not watts? watts is power consumed and can have no bearing on light output. this is often got wrong with amps and volume of output from the speakers.
Click to expand...
No, because actual, meaningful energy (e.g. lumens, foot candles) was never quoted by the makers of tungsten lights, or at least not as far as I can remember. All they told us about was watts, probably because the lights were so inefficient in terms of light/heat ratio.
 
Garry Edwards said:
I think if you backwork it you'll find that the maths is right...
I started from the basis that the flash exposure (using a 1000 j flash) was f/11, therefore the flash head has to be much further from the subject than would normally be used and ended up with ... whatever I ended up with:) 1/10th @f/2 I think - with the tungsten light, which would of course be at the same distance as the flash head.

In practice, 1/60th at f/5.6 was about right with the light very close and the model melting...:lol:

I'm just so glad we have flash now
Click to expand...

Me too :eek: I think it was the conversion of 1000w tungsten to 1000ws flash that was adrift. Both electrical measures rather than light output.

By that reckoning, it would be impossible to shoot at all under normal room lighting, which is clearly not the case ;)
 
HoppyUK said:
Me too :eek: I think it was the conversion of 1000w tungsten to 1000ws flash that was adrift. Both electrical measures rather than light output.

By that reckoning, it would be impossible to shoot at all under normal room lighting, which is clearly not the case ;)
Click to expand...

I don't think it was adrift, but it would probably have been easier to explain that at a 1/1000th sec shutter speed, flash has about 3,000 x the power of tungsten lighting.
 
well I did another sucessful shoot with my lights recently:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Tikigod19/GemmaAndKids#

However, on a hot sunny day I finally decided now its time to take everyones advice and switch to flash!

I have seen a 900w kit comprising of 3x 300w flash lights. Do you think this wattage would be sufficient or should be paying more and going up in the wattage??
 
Flash is expressed in Watt/seconds or joules, not watts - it the lights you're looking at are 300 Ws then the power will be fine, but there's far more to decent lighting than power, so it isn't possible to advise you without some details
 
thanks again for your reply Garry.
My initial research has lead me to this for £309

Model 300DI
Flash Output 300WS
Guide Number(ISO100) 58
Color Temperature 5400±200K
Flash Power Control stepless
Modeling Lamp 75WS( adjustable)
Recharging Time 0.5-2s
Flash Triggering Method Sync cord, Slave, Test button,Flash trigger
Triggering Voltage 5V DC
Flash Duration 1/2000-1/800s
Fuse 8A

and this for £359

Model TC600
Flash Output 600W
Guide Number(ISO100) 80
Color Temperature 5600±200K
Power Voltage AC100-120V 60HZ
Flash Power Control stepless 1/16~1
Modeling Lamp 150W
Recharging Time 0.4-2s
Trigger Mode Test button, Sync cord, Flash trigger, Slave

The only thing that worries me is a 2 second recharge time. Is that common?
 
in fact thinking about it I think I can live with 2 secs.
The kits I've seen come with one wireless trigger. Do I not need 3 receivers for 3 flashes? Or is that what a sync cable is for, to connect them all together so the one trigger can be used to control all 3?
 
The first one looks like an ebay special, 3 light kit?

I keep looking at these and the advice on here is to go fpr Lencarta or Elimental etc. Its worth looking on photodeals as well they do a nice looking 2 x 300ws outfit at just over the £300 mark.

The ebay ones may however be very good, despite all the advice to avoid them, no one one here has actually appeared to have used them........so how do they know?

You dont need extra receivers (although you could work that way if you wanted) studio flashes normally have a sensor so that as one is triggered by the radio or sync lead they all fire....
 
The slow recycling may in fact be a problem, it depends on the type of photogaphy you're doing.

With such dim modelling lamps, my guess is that these flashes are not fan cooled, personally I wouldn't be happy with that.

You only need one radio receiver - other flash heads operate as slaves - unless someone else is also firing flashes, which will set your flashes off.
 
yeah they do have fan cooling. I'll be doing child portraits mainly so I suppose recharge time would be important however I've just seen a couple of £700+ kits with a recharge time of 2-4 secs?!

So if i were to overlook the recharge time then the only issue is the modelling lamps are a bit dim? Am I right in saying they stay on all the time so you can see what the picture will look like and then when you fire the flash you get roughly what you were looking at, all be it enhanced by the flash?

Is the power of the flashes themselves sufficient on the cheaper kit? (3x300w)

I've just seen the 1200w one had only 2 flashes of 600w each in it and I think i'd prefer one with 3.
 
I'm considering the higher powered (600ws, 150w lamp) kit which only has 2 flashes as I can buy a third in future if necessary. Just out of interest, is it usual for 3 flashes (2 on backdrop one at front) to have to all be the same wattage? I'm considering buying the 2 x 600w kit and seeing how I get on, but wondered if I needed a third flash could I get away with a 300w to use at the front?
 
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