Studio lighting help (softboxes/equipment information)

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karansaraf

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Karan
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Hi there. This is my first post and I have not done much browsing of this forum in the past, so please forgive me if I am asking a question that has been asked many times before.

I have been asked to do some studio ball photography. Very simple stuff. People stand in front of a screen and get their picture taken.

I know nothing about lighting. I have been doing a bit of research, but am still a complete noob.

I was thinking of using two softboxes with two strobes - Nikon SB600 Speedlights (NOT the continuous bulbs).

What I want to know is, exactly what equipment do I need to achieve this?

Obviously I need a softbox. The difficulty I've found with this is that most of the ones on warehouseexpress.com (the only UK photography seller I've found to date) seem to be the softboxes that attach to lights/continuous heads, rather than hotshoe strobes/flashes/speedlights. So I've had trouble finding a suitable 60x60-100x100 softbox of this specification. Any recommendations/tips?

Then I will need a lightstand, and the brackets to attach the hotshoe flash/strobe/speedlight to the stand and also a bracket to attach the softbox to the stand and the hotshoe strobe. Unfortunately I don't know the specific names of these brackets and so I haven't been able to search for them. Any help regarding this matter?

NB. I need cheap or relatively cheap softboxes that range between 60x60 and 100x100 (I guess most practical size would be about 80x80 considering I have to buy two, although if necessary I suppose I would have to settle for 60x60 if too expensive). The softboxes I buy don't have to be professional or ridiculously amazing build quality, if they last me for 3 or 4 studio sessions then they will have been worth the price. And obviously I will take care of them extremely well so if I have to sacrifice a little bit of build quality in order to get cheaper ones, then I will do so.


Any help is much appreciated!
 
not sure why you say you need to use a softbox.
Brollies are much cheaper.

How about 2 manfrotto 5001b nano stands, about £80. these are great cos they fold so small, a bit pricey for a stand, but worth it imo.
2 reflective/shoot thru brollies, Westcott are cool cos they fold really small too, Creative video is the only place i have found them, other than in the buy/sell here. £25 ish
2 small ball heads with brollie holders from ebay 'link-delight' £12 each
the feet supplied with the sb600 screw on to the ball head so you dont need any other adapers.
Your entire setup then fits in 1 small bag. cost about £150, not much different to the cost of 1 lastolite ezybox setup.
 
I think you should have a little look here

http://www.viewfinderphotography.co.uk/product_view.php?prod_id=465

And for a quick intro to off camera lighting try this

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

I am quite surprised that the only photography supplier you have found so far is Warehouse Express. Have a little look at the suppliers thread on this forum and you will see a list of used equipment sellers. But also have a look at Calumet, Jessops and Jacobs to name but a few
 
with softboxes on SB-600's your recycling times will be far to long - you need studio flash for this.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies so far, they have been very helpful and I will look into each one of the links in detail over the next week.

awp said:
with softboxes on SB-600's your recycling times will be far to long - you need studio flash for this.
Click to expand...

By studio flash, do you mean continuous lighting or lights that flash, but aren't speedlights? I found one site that splits its umbrella lighting into "continuous lighting kits" and "flash lighting kits". Am I therefore to assume that the flash lighting kits lights that are permanently connected to the umbrellas and are light sensitive so when they detect your speedlight going off, they will also fire in syncronisation and don't need any sort of IR/radio triggering? If so, with this setup do I have to have my speedlight on my camera hotshoe?

Here is an example of a flash lighting kit from this site I found (is this what you mean?)

http://www.backdropsource.co.uk/Productinfo.asp?id=694&pname=160-watt-flash-light-umbrella-kit

Also, that is a shoot-through umbrella right?

What do people think of shoot through vs. reflector umbrellas?
 
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