Still life speedlight advice

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Steve T

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Hi, I want to look into speed lights for still life in a small studio enviroment. At the moment I use very simple but precise continuous lighting of my own construction for all my product photography.
I now want to look into flash, and in particular speedlights as opposed to studio flash heads, which will come later, when I have mastered speedlights.

What, if anything, would you recommend from the yuongo range of units for use as product and general still life flashes. I envisage three units minimum and would like as much manual control as possible and a simple system of triggering them, to give me as customiseable a system as possible.

I want to start at the bottom and grow into the art of flash rather than buy into it.

Any advice and recommendations most welcome.
 
I think you're looking at it the wrong way around - speedlights are much harder to master than studio flash, because they don't have modelling lights.

You can get away with it for basic portraiture as the light positions are fairly simple and with quite a lot of room for error, relatively speaking. With still life, that tends to be even more about the play of light and shadows, it's just the opposite and fine positioning to within a few inches and at just the right distance is vital. You will also want to position reflectors etc precisely, and that's very difficult and/or time consuming with constant trial and error.
 
Hi Richard, thanks for the reply, to be honest, thats why I want to start with speedlights. I want to develop a 'feel' for using flash and the fact that its the opposite of wysiwyg, is what attracts me. To learn to envisage the best shot lighting with flash, is more important to me at the moment than getting a quick result. I want to learn this the hard way with minimal gear. As I say, I am happy with what I can achieve with continuous lights, but everyone tells me flash is better??? So, I intend to find out by starting with the basics, using basic gear. The range of flash models is a bit confusing though and a nod in the right direction of what I'm trying to start with would be appreciated. I would like a simple ('desk top' for want of a better description) master and slave triggering system with as much controll as possible, but with really simple kit.
 
Why would anyone want to learn flash the wrong way round? Richard has given you some really good advice. Save yourself a lot of time/frustration/heartache/money and follow it.

You won't develop a feel from using speedlights first; the other way round YES!
 
Well, my mum was a canoe and my dad was a punt so I guess that makes me a panoe or maybe a....

To me, flash is just a light source like all the others, how it is delivered, reflected or shaped and at what power, is for a panoe like me, better learnt the hard way rather than sheepishly becoming an expert on what everyone else has discovered or invented.

I started with worklights and all sorts of tungsten bulbs, plus every other kind of bulb and eventually high CRI rated CFL. I just have a small customised shooting enviroment in a bedroom at home but I get spot on results as good as any I have seen every time, photographing embossed ceramics, gloss matt and satin glazed. That setup cost me about three hundred quid and took over a year to perfect along with highly accurate colour reproduction.

Now I want to photograph grandchildren and whilst I am at it, look into product photography with flash at the same time. I aint spending a shedload of money on studio gear ( metal and plastic bits originated by others ) until I understand how actual flash 'light' works and I can learn that with any source of flash. I already have a form of modeling lights I devised myself which work very well to illustrate shadow etc and the power adjustment of the flashes I just got seem okay to me for a start.

By the way, what is the difference between a speedlight flash and a studio flash, In what way is the speedlight 'light quality' inferior.

b****r the kit it is mounted in, It's the actual 'light' that is important to me.

Sorry to rant but I have had a hard time from scratch getting accurate colour on top of learning photography in general and I'm a bit weary of advice that is based simply on confusing product knowledge.

I am 60 now, my generation was bought up to learn why a thing worked as opposed to just knowing that it simply works.

Anyone tried flash through a two way mirror, bounced off a chrome globe, used with fibre optics... loads to find out...:thumbs:

Hope that answers your question PDM:|
 
Steve T - what Hoppy says is right in a general sense, as having a modelling light to show you how the light falls is very useful. However, get past this and for home studio work then speed lights can offer an alternative, albeit one with less power than a studio head and with less readily-available light modifiers*

I use speed lights at home for lighting product and I like the versatility and the flexibility of positioning that they allow.

They key thing is, as you've said, learning how to modify the light. There are some very good soft boxes and brollies out there for speed lights that are fine, they do the job. Things like beauty dishes are available but they're compromised due to their size and the power of the flash.

Other than family/kids, what other subjects are you aiming to shoot? That might offer a bit more info to help you find the right equipment.... :)

*(Unless you get something like an S-type speeding and then you can use Bowens and general light modifiers)
 
Hi Pat, at the moment just shots of the embossed tiles I design and make which, I can do in my customised spare room area. This is great for what it was intended for, a set of fixed layouts and minisets the take pics (with some sort of visual continuity) of samples for people to view prior to me posting them off.
However, I will want to take some installation/setting shots as opposed to single tile/colour variants in the near future, kitchen splashback settings etc. Obviously,my existing skill set and kit won't be any good for this hence my looking into flash. I've just started exraying my grandchildren and burning out retinas in general with the built in flash:) and see that I can do better with speedlights off camera etc. It's a whole new ball game for me, proper photography stuff, outside my little room shooting on a tripod with tinfoil, white card and mirrors.

So far I like the faster shutter speeds, very good colour, plus the simplicity of moving the light etc. This should help me to get out and about and into my production and mold making studios to get some artisan type shots showing 'what we do' type of thing etc. This is the final set of shots for my website as all the main product stuff is more or less done. All my efforts 'outside' of my 'little room' to date, have been pretty crap and nowhere near good enough to put online.

So now is the time to move on.:)
 
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