Chrisnjord
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I am looking at buying a light setup with 3 lights, but I am not sure what watt strength I need for a good all round setup. I am looking at taking full body shots. Any ideas?
Wattage for portable studio lights
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kiteninja
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cheap end
Quatum, edray has put up a review of them somewhere,t here pretty cheap and powerfull and accept the s-fit modifiers plus you get a battery per light.
Slightly up the scale Lencarta safar twin head kit both lights 600ws but when used on the same battery they go down to 300w each but can pick up another battery and then they'll be 600w again
take sfit modifiers again small light easy to use.
Then there is Bowens you buy a travel pak and a couple lights both lights run of same pack and have equal power so can use 2 250, 500, 1000w heads soid build, heavy though and take up more room, cost more etc.. but IMO worth the money.
There are others but thats the ones i know about I've got the Bowens if your local feel free to come have a play .
Quatum, edray has put up a review of them somewhere,t here pretty cheap and powerfull and accept the s-fit modifiers plus you get a battery per light.
Slightly up the scale Lencarta safar twin head kit both lights 600ws but when used on the same battery they go down to 300w each but can pick up another battery and then they'll be 600w again
take sfit modifiers again small light easy to use. Then there is Bowens you buy a travel pak and a couple lights both lights run of same pack and have equal power so can use 2 250, 500, 1000w heads soid build, heavy though and take up more room, cost more etc.. but IMO worth the money.
There are others but thats the ones i know about
I've got the Bowens if your local feel free to come have a play .
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Garry Edwards
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It's watt seconds not wattage, but it's a difficult question to answer - and IMO not a very important one, compared to other factors.
Think of a watt second as the (rough) equivalent of one watt of light for one second. Now, the flash only fires for about 1/1000th second, so the amount of light is equal to the amount that you'd get from a continuous light of the same wattage during a 1 second exposure. That's quite a lot.
A better way of understanding it is perhaps to think in guide numbers. The ElitePro 300, 300 Ws, has a guide number of 162 with the standard reflector. This means that at a distance of 10', full power will give you an aperture of f/16.2. It's highly unlikely that you'd want more power than that.
Having said that, there are some fairly specialised lighting tools that do 'eat' a fair bit of power, for example focussing spotlights, tight honeycombs and the like, and if you end up using these creative lighting tools you'll need more power than if you stick to umbrellas and the like.
Back to your question: Full body shots might involve say a large softbox at a distance of around 6' from the subject. A 200Ws flash would give you something like f/10, a 300Ws would give you something like f/14.
Think of a watt second as the (rough) equivalent of one watt of light for one second. Now, the flash only fires for about 1/1000th second, so the amount of light is equal to the amount that you'd get from a continuous light of the same wattage during a 1 second exposure. That's quite a lot.
A better way of understanding it is perhaps to think in guide numbers. The ElitePro 300, 300 Ws, has a guide number of 162 with the standard reflector. This means that at a distance of 10', full power will give you an aperture of f/16.2. It's highly unlikely that you'd want more power than that.
Having said that, there are some fairly specialised lighting tools that do 'eat' a fair bit of power, for example focussing spotlights, tight honeycombs and the like, and if you end up using these creative lighting tools you'll need more power than if you stick to umbrellas and the like.
Back to your question: Full body shots might involve say a large softbox at a distance of around 6' from the subject. A 200Ws flash would give you something like f/10, a 300Ws would give you something like f/14.
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Chrisnjord
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Thanks for your advice, very helpful
May be a silly question, but in terms of electronic equipment do you feel that in regard to life expectancy even though you may be able to get away with a 200Ws light, you may be continually using it at full/near full capacity all the time.
Would this reduce it's overall life expectancy compared to using a comparable 300Ws or higher flash at a lower setting and therefore a further consideration to bear in mind ?.
Would this reduce it's overall life expectancy compared to using a comparable 300Ws or higher flash at a lower setting and therefore a further consideration to bear in mind ?.
Garry Edwards
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Yes, that is a fair point, but Lencarta has one particular customer who has a SmartFlash 200 head set up permanently to take 5000 shots per day at full power and it's still going strong after a several months of use. Mind you, they get through a new flash tube every 21 days on average, but 105,000 flashes per tube ain't badMay be a silly question, but in terms of electronic equipment do you feel that in regard to life expectancy even though you may be able to get away with a 200Ws light, you may be continually using it at full/near full capacity all the time.
Would this reduce it's overall life expectancy compared to using a comparable 300Ws or higher flash at a lower setting and therefore a further consideration to bear in mind ?.
Another consideration is recycling time. All things being equal, a 300Ws flash head that recycles after 1 second at full power will recycle at any given setting more quickly than a lower powered head with the same full power recycling speed
THE-BIG-MAN-SAYS
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5000 shots per day...wow...
8 hour day...60 mins...480...so approx...1 every 6 sec...16 hours 1 every 12 sec...24 hours 1 every 18 sec...
Okay...Im crazy curios...a hint please...?
STEVIER
8 hour day...60 mins...480...so approx...1 every 6 sec...16 hours 1 every 12 sec...24 hours 1 every 18 sec...
Okay...Im crazy curios...a hint please...?
STEVIER
Garry Edwards
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It's a store at Piccadilly Circus, apparently they photograph everyone as they walk past through a certain point and sell them the photos, and there are 5000 per day average. Not very different really to the rides at Alton Towers etc, where everyone gets photographed as they scream
All it needs is good equipment and a good workflow.
All it needs is good equipment and a good workflow.
kiteninja
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I might have to have a look for the place ,
Not really related but I was at the London Aquarium few weeks back and they where using Bowens gemini 500 with small Octabox taking photos of people coming in, they've gotta have a few thousand people everyday coming through if not more so that is alot of flashes I did ponder being cheeky and using a pulsar to take my own shot
lol.
, Not really related but I was at the London Aquarium few weeks back and they where using Bowens gemini 500 with small Octabox taking photos of people coming in, they've gotta have a few thousand people everyday coming through if not more so that is alot of flashes I did ponder being cheeky and using a pulsar to take my own shot
lol. It's a store at Piccadilly Circus, apparently they photograph everyone as they walk past through a certain point and sell them the photos, and there are 5000 per day average. Not very different really to the rides at Alton Towers etc, where everyone gets photographed as they scream
All it needs is good equipment and a good workflow.