What light system?

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Duncan.F

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Duncan
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I am intending to buy a studio set up but I do not have any intention of working in a studio. I have a number of projects in mind, generally indoors, portrait type shots [i have another friend in theatre who is in to hair and make up] and some sports work.
For example i have a friend who is a kick boxer and they would like some promo stuff done for their gym. Training, sparring and full on bouts. The venues lights are not great so flash is a must and they are happy with that. My concern is that the kit I buy needs to cover a wide spectrum of subject matter and therefore needs reasonable portability as well.
Budget say up to £1200.....

Cheers,

Dunc
 
Good budget for a decent 2 or 3 light system.

The Elinchrom Quadras are expensive BUT perfect for shooting high speed action (with the A heads) - You may need to add a little to the budget though..... Very portable (as small as it comes for studio stuff) and there are plenty of high quality modifers available.

If it's mains powered lights you want Elinchrom BXRi are excellent quality lights with high end features. But look at Bowens/Lencarta too.
 
Bowens you will want the R/pro line with the special fast durations, if you're after catching motion.

Elinchrom are probably your best bet for that budget :)
 
Is your £1200 budget inclusive of modifiers? As you can spend a few bob on that too! Backgrounds, softboxes, etc etc.... Speak to The Flash Centre - they are generally good for Elinchrom gear.
 
Hi Duncan,

have a word with Garry Edwards at Lencarta, he is very knowledgeable on all types of lighting and although he represents Lencarta, he can be relied upon to give general advice without trying to 'sell' anything. He also runs lighting workshops subsidised by Lencarta. Have a look at the LENCARTA website, there are videos and lots of general lighting information to help. Good luck.
 
If you really must have portable power AND very short flash durations then the only real choice is Profoto, but they are very expensive. The Elinchrom Quadra (with the 'A' heads are nowhere near as suitable but are cheaper.

If you can use mains power, you are still stuck with the need for very short flash durations, and flash duration figures are often misunderstood, because most manufacturers quote a t.5 time, the time it takes for HALF of the flash power to discharge. This isn't very helpful, the flash duration time that really matters for action-stopping flash is the t.1 time, which is generally different by a factor of about 3, which means that if the t.5 time is say 1/900th then the t.1 time is only about 1/300th. The best flash, in terms of t.1 time, is probably the Alien Bees Einstein, but only when used at fairly low power settings. Not cheap and I'm not sure of the current availability situation, but well worth a look.

I'd like to be able to recommend Lencarta, but neither of the Lencarta portable power solutions have short enough flash durations for your needs.

Your other solution is to forget about a solution that will cover all bases and get a studio flash kit that doesn't have short flash durations for most situations and use hotshoe flashes for when action-stopping is needed.
 
Thank you very much for all the inputs! Much food for thought, I think the sports stuff is going only a small percentage of what I intend to shoot. I don't think it makes good financial sense to spend a great deal on something I will oly use the benefit of rarely. As Gary says I could use my 580ex's for action and use high ISO...?
I am booked on the next course at Maidstone, weekend after next, so i wont be making any decisions until then!
So if I take a step back from specialist sports lighting what are my options assuming my budget includes modifiers..

Dunc
 
Garry Edwards said:
The best flash, in terms of t.1 time, is probably the Alien Bees Einstein, but only when used at fairly low power settings.
Click to expand...

I believe the quadra's fastest duration is when used at full power Garry? What makes them unsuitable for what the OP wanted?
 
EOS_JD said:
I believe the quadra's fastest duration is when used at full power Garry? What makes them unsuitable for what the OP wanted?
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I'm not saying that they're unsuitable, all that I am saying is that my own preference is for the much more expensive Profoto. But that's just a personal preference.

Edit: Yes, it does read a bit like that, but it isn't what I meant to say.
 
If you are not going to be using the gear all the time you could always hire Profoto gear for portable work as and when you need it... Which is what I do every month or so, for me to buy a 7b Pro system just wouldn't make economic sense unless I was using it every few days. Just a thought
 
There is a really good article in photo plus magazine about starter sets. Might be an idea to get a copy
 
What do you mean by portable? Battery powered outdoors, or just easy to transport? Actually, most of the fully portable systems are the hardest to transport because of the heavy batteries - apart from the ones with small shoulder-packs. But if you can plug in to the mains, normal studio heads seem like the way to go. You have enough budget to get a decent system from Bowens, Lencarta or Elinchrom.

I like Garry's idea of using hot shoe guns for the action stuff. I reckon my 580EX guns are about 80-100ws equivalent on full power and two of those on half power ganged into a twin mount softbox should give you usable power at higher ISO and really good action stopping potential. They recycle pretty quick at lower power settings too.

There's another thread on flash durations running here http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=300521 which might throw up some interesting comments.
 
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Hi
No, I wasn't envisaging battery power. I hadn't realised about the flash duration issue for sports work so thanks for the heads up on that Garry!

Its really a case of deciding on the best system I can get for my budget. By portability I meant something that is not too cumbersome in terms of its size and weight, nor do i want to be getting old whilstsetting up or breaking down kit!

Dunc
 
Duncan.F said:
Hi
No, I wasn't envisaging battery power. I hadn't realised about the flash duration issue for sports work so thanks for the heads up on that Garry!

Its really a case of deciding on the best system I can get for my budget. By portability I meant something that is not too cumbersome in terms of its size and weight, nor do i want to be getting old whilstsetting up or breaking down kit!

Dunc
Click to expand...
Well, that makes it simpler I think - and cheaper:)
Your choices are now really between Bowens, Elinchrom and Lencarta (in alphabetical order) and you'll be happy with any of them. There are other makes too of course.

But you're still left with the action-freezing problem with most studio flash heads, so I stick with my suggestion that you use hotshoe flashes for fast-moving sports, but you can use studio flash for everything else.

Actually, once you've got a bit of practice, you can use them together to create interesting effects - studio flash to show a bit of movement blur and hotshoe flash, at a higher level (say 1/4 power) to create a sharp underlying image.
 
That's something I need to investigte Garry :) Use of hotshoe flash with my strobes..... I need some practice :)
 
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