Thanks. It's gratifying to get such rapid response from so many! Yes, Jonathan, "hard to tick all those boxes" without depending somewhat on flash, especially for the street food photography.
Seems I have THREE TYPES OF SHOOTS:
(1) TABLE-TOP OUTDOORS - tea leaf (product-type) photography. I've been doing this on my north-facing, 7th floor apt. deck. No reflectors, lights, anything - just diffused northern light (11am-2pm). I have had some shadow problems with the DRY tea leaves (which I guess a simple reflector might cure?), and reflection/highlight problems off the WET tea leaves, which made the tea look as though it had been dipped in olive oil! To calm these down, I improvised a light box from a plastic jug wrapped with white paper; put the wet tea down into that. This got rid of most of the reflections.
(2) TABLE TOP INDOORS - Food (plates, veggies, fruit, desserts, etc.) I gather that food often needs more than one light source for highlighting, modeling or lighting shadows. If you have natural light, I assume a lot can be achieved with simple reflectors, but not all. My source of natural light (here in Thailand) is somewhat unreliable due to rapid-onset permutations in the weather (otherwise known as clouds!) There are also rain squalls,wind, dust, etc., to screw things up. That's when I'd like to be able to MOVE INSIDE, where I will need some sort of simple, inexpensive studio lighting kit, no? What sort of basic kit would I need to get started inside? My budget, to reply to Adam G, is under $500, but if payments keep coming from writing jobs, eventually about $1,000. Is that woefully under par?
3) STREET FOOD IN INDIA (In the daytime, lots of harsh sunlight mixed with shaded areas at sidewalk food stalls. At night, weak ambient tungsten mixed with harsh tube light My guess is this is where FLASH/STROBE will be most versatile, but I don't have much faith in using only one, on camera, unit. Won't it take multiple, synced units with reflectors? I appreciate the suggestion of LED PANELS, LED TORCHES or PAG LIGHTS. I know of LED technology, of course, but not "LED panels" and "torches" for photography. Don't know PAG LIGHT, but will Google and try to catch up. I want LIGHT WEIGHT, COMPACTNESS and EFFICIENT, RECHARGEABLE BATTERY PACKS. Without this, I doubt I could take the kit as carry-on and onto the crowded streets of India. Any further comments, suggestions, reflections (pun unintended) are most welcome.
