Lighting

Jesspho

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Jessica
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I'm planning on becoming a freelance photographer but im unsure on the voltage of the lighting that i should buy. I'll mainly be doing portraits and still life. What would your advice be?
 
In the UK? 240v ;)
 
I'm planning on becoming a freelance photographer but im unsure on the voltage of the lighting that i should buy. I'll mainly be doing portraits and still life. What would your advice be?

Or do you mean the watt seconds? (power)
 
Yes sorry, Watt seconds is exactly what i meant.
 
Never mind i've found the lighting i'm buying thanks for taking the time to answer :)
 
Never mind i've found the lighting i'm buying thanks for taking the time to answer :)

Are you sharing your find with us?

There's more considerations buying lights than pure power, whether low medium or high. Would you buy a new car based on its power output? We don't even buy microwaves based on power any more.

Build quality, controls, recycle time, modifier mount, price are all more important than raw power to me.
 
Jessica
Just in case, don't buy ebay kits.

Phil is quite right.

For a small studio 200 maybe 300Ws lights are more than powerful enough - What makes the difference is the modifiers you can put on them. Phil has mentioned most of the other important considerations - also important depending on what you are shooting is the flash duration. Some flashes have a burst that is 1/6000th second and allows you to stop action (like dancers in motion). Some cheaper units may have a flash duration around 1/900th and that is not fast enough to stop motion in a fairly fast moving subject.

With low power lights you can also use wider apertures in your images - With 500Ws lights if close up, you may struggle to get below something like f11.

Lots of considerations - 200Ws lights will easily light a white background.

Would be interested to hear what you went with in the end.
 
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