What to buy...?

Paulmack

Paulmack

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Thanks to my current employers massively overstating the value of my company car on my P11D, our good friends HMRC have kindly reimbursed me, so I'm thinking I'm going to invest in some more kit.

I'm sorted with bodies and lenses for now I think, I have a Lencarta 3 light setup, background support, couple of soft boxes etc so now I'm thinking what next?

I really want to push on with my portrait / studio ability, as that's what interests me the most, and I am only really getting back into my cameras now after a few years off, but I want to invest wisely as I'm not feeling very secure in my job at the minute and would really love to give my photography a good run for it's money and see if I can earn from it.

I think a decent reliable trigger set is first on the list, I used to have elinchrom skyports but didn't get on with them too well, and I've been using the cables for now, so I'm thinking pocket wizards simply because they have such a good reputation and will work first time all the time?

What I'm thinking next is do I get a few more flash heads for lighting backgrounds with the shaping tools, or do I focus mainly on buying the likes of more soft boxes with honeycombs and snoots etc and make do with the 3 lights?

Budget for tho at the moment is about £1k, as I've spent big on bodies and lenses, so I'm hoping Garry will chip in here and provide done advice as I'm quite fond of the Lencarta kit I already have...

The last thing I do want to spend some money on is a full day workshop focussing on portrait work and how to get the best out of lighting across the spectrum of babies, toddlers, family shoots and fashion.

So then, what advice can you guys give me?
 
mike weeks said:
Do not make statements like this "Thanks to my current employers massively overstating the value of my company car on my P11D" - things have a way of getting to the right people

Mike
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sorry there might be some confusion in that initial post, the overstatement was a mistake by work, and once corrected HMRC refunded me what was overpaid by me, so its all good and above board. The transport department put an extra £10k on the value of my company car on my P11D and when I picked it up they changed it and informed HMRC about their mistake. Fortunately it resulted in a refund for me, so more funds to spend on new toys...
 
Paulmack said:
so I'm hoping Garry will chip in here and provide done advice as I'm quite fond of the Lencarta kit I already have...
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I'll help if I can but for any advice to be worth listening to, I'll need to know a lot more...
Studio size?
Studio height?
Babies, toddlers and family shoots aren't very demanding on equipment, space or knowledge, but fashion can be - can you be more specific? Can you point to examples of fashion shots that you would like to be able to create?
 
The space I have access to at the minute is about 12 metres long by about 5 metres wide, so hopefully big enough?
It also has a decent height ceiling height, with large steel trusses, it has a large roller shutter door to the front, and no windows, so can stop any unwanted light.

to be honest the videos you posted the other day of the shoot in your studio recently with the flour etc was excellent, and whilst I am not necessarily wanting to go exactly down that route and creating a mess, the type of shoot was excellent , but I am not wanting to tie myself down to a certain style, I want to be flexible to cover a lot of subjects really, so thats why I am thinking about getting the right kit for all occasions, getting the bare minimum if that makes sense?
 
OK...
Space is good, it's obviously an industrial unit, which is a big help in terms of the range of work you can do.

If you ever do want to do shots involving movement, things flying around and so on, then the SuperFast is the obvious way to go simply because nothing else can do that.

But for more 'normal' work, the SuperFast isn't needed and perhaps you should be thinking in terms of honeycombs for use with standard reflectors (the 10 degree one is probably the most useful) and honeycombs for softboxes.
A beauty dish, especially if you get a honeycomb for it, would be excellent for fashion use.

Other than that, and perhaps another flash head to be used with the honeycombs, you also need to think about lighting gels, blu tac, masking tape, gaffer tape, cinefoil and all the other bits and pieces that allow you to take on a wider range of work, and to do it more easily.
 
Garry Edwards said:
OK...
Space is good, it's obviously an industrial unit, which is a big help in terms of the range of work you can do.

If you ever do want to do shots involving movement, things flying around and so on, then the SuperFast is the obvious way to go simply because nothing else can do that.

But for more 'normal' work, the SuperFast isn't needed and perhaps you should be thinking in terms of honeycombs for use with standard reflectors (the 10 degree one is probably the most useful) and honeycombs for softboxes.
A beauty dish, especially if you get a honeycomb for it, would be excellent for fashion use.

Other than that, and perhaps another flash head to be used with the honeycombs, you also need to think about lighting gels, blu tac, masking tape, gaffer tape, cinefoil and all the other bits and pieces that allow you to take on a wider range of work, and to do it more easily.
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Yeah was looking at the beauty dishes on the lencarta website, what size would you recommend 40 or 70? I also like the strip soft box too.
Do you not sell the background reflectors anymore?
 
I find the 70cm more useful.
We do still sell the background reflectors but they've been taken off the website because they've sold out.
A new delivery will arrive at the docks on the 8th, and will be in the warehouse a few days after that.
We have the non-folding strip softboxes in stock, the folding versions will be in the same delivery as the background reflectors (and a lot of other things)
 
ah ok no problem, maybe best waiting until after the 8th then.

Whats your opinion on triggers? Worthwhile forking out on PW's or is there something else I should be seriously looking at?
 
Paulmack said:
ah ok no problem, maybe best waiting until after the 8th then.

Whats your opinion on triggers? Worthwhile forking out on PW's or is there something else I should be seriously looking at?
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PW triggers have had their day. Once the 'industry standard' they're now just overpriced and underperforming.

Yongnuo triggers are reliable and almost disposable in price, they're a no-brainer. Of course should you start replacing your lights (or buying additional) from Lencarta, they'll come with the new Wavesync trigger system, and you'll then want to replace all your lights to take full advantage of that.
 
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Phil V said:
PW triggers have had their day. Once the 'industry standard' they're now just overpriced and underperforming.

Yongnuo triggers are reliable and almost disposable in price, they're a no-brainer. Of course should you start replacing your lights (or buying additional) from Lencarta, they'll come with the new Wavesync trigger system, and you'll then want to replace all your lights to take full advantage of that.
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Interesting comment on the PW, never really heard anyone have too bad a word about them, yeah a lot complain they are expensive but I suppose its horses for courses.

Assuming you use the Yongnuo triggers, which ones have you got?
 
I use the 622C TTL triggers, I previously had the Pocketwizard flex's.

I appreciate that the ETTL triggers ahave suffered a worse fate than the dumb triggers, but I had reliability problems largely due to the bandwidth used and subsequent interference. It wasn't funny, I now have no problems at all and at a price that makes the PW's look like a huge waste of money. If I'd paid Yongnuo prices for the PW's I'd have been glad to pay the extra to get the more reliable YN's. The fact that the costs were the other way round is just mad. I sold my PW's and bought 2 YN flashguns and a pair of triggers with cash to spare.
 
Cheers Phil, will have a good look at them then and see what they are like...

I am however looking at another 2 light kit from Lencarta to go with the 3 lights I already have, and they come with the wave sync commander, so if I go ahead with them then I can use that and the newer lights can trigger the others using the optical sensor, unless Garry tells advises that is bad idea?
 
PW are possibly the best constructed when compared to the cheaper chinese brands such as Yongnuo but the question has to be if you are using studio flash why would you need ettl? I use some very cheap mains pass through triggers for most studio flash work however I have PW, Commlite, Wavesync - it all depends on what I need to do.

Mike
 
Paulmack said:
Cheers Phil, will have a good look at them then and see what they are like...

I am however looking at another 2 light kit from Lencarta to go with the 3 lights I already have, and they come with the wave sync commander, so if I go ahead with them then I can use that and the newer lights can trigger the others using the optical sensor, unless Garry tells advises that is bad idea?
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Yes that's all you need. And later if you are thinking about speedlights, you can go with Atoms or Vings (or other names for similar kit) and use the same system). It's the future...
 
Well, I just want to say a big thank you to Garry for sparing me some time today to go through all of the options available and making genuine technical recommendations which were not biased towards a sale at all, in fact his advice led me to purchase something cheaper than I originally planned.

Top bloke and was willing to spend time offering advice and guidance, so thank you!

Needless to say I did a bit of spending whilst there and now have a few new toys to play with :)
 
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