Studio lighting thread

James J

James J

James J

Soldato
Joined
4 Dec 2002
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North Lincolnshire
I've just taken the plunge into studio lighting to further improve shots I make money from and I was wondering what gear other people have or are looking at buying!

I spent just short of £400 on a single light setup by lencarta, with a boom arm, 140x70cm soft box and elite pro 300w flash head which can do unto 1/2000th second speeds to eliminate the need for black or white backgrounds. I wanted a large soft box so I can really get to grips with specular lighting and garry edwards over at talk photography has given me some great insight into it. Also picked up a 5 in 1 reflector (80cm) for when I need to produce other effects with my setup, including further reducing shadows from specific angles, without destroying them.

I was looking at some of the cheap stuff on ebay but the quality of it is generally regarded to be bad and the soft boxes are all tiny, making their uses very limited unless you upgraded instantly. I also don't need multiple lights for what I have in mind, which I'll show some shots off as and when the stuff arrives!

I'll take some photos of the lighting setup also as a learning tool for others like myself going into this sort of photography if people show an interest in that :)
 
What sort of images are you trying to capture? Any examples? As I guess that would determine what/if any additional gear you needed.

If it's portraits a beauty dish could be a good addition to use with the boom arm.
 
I'll be getting some Merlins, I like the idea of being able to sync my shutter at 1/8000 with hyper-sync outside at F1.4, as well as control power levels remotely. Will also be getting something like a vegabond mini to power it.
 
I got some quality softboxes off the bay tbh, I like the ones that open like an umbrella.
Personally parabolic umbrella's are my favourite, the brand I like that is cheap but very high quality is Hobo.
 
GSXRMovistar said:
What sort of images are you trying to capture? Any examples? As I guess that would determine what/if any additional gear you needed.

If it's portraits a beauty dish could be a good addition to use with the boom arm.
Click to expand...

Not doing portraits, doing creative scene and product style shots. Got exactly whats required to do both in my setup :)
 
An Exception said:
I got some quality softboxes off the bay tbh, I like the ones that open like an umbrella.
Personally parabolic umbrella's are my favourite, the brand I like that is cheap but very high quality is Hobo.
Click to expand...

Octoboxes? I was looking at the bay for some cheaper alternatives to the lencarta stuff but theres no indication on quality what so ever, or more importantly, fitting type -.-
 
Nice find, however its not as long and thin as I require! Do you have any studio lighting at the moment? If so take some photos of the setup buddy!
 
Yes and No, personally I prefer to use speedlights in studio modifiers, I like the ability to manually adjust power from my camera or even just use TTL. If the light is very close, TTL can actually be more consistent.
Also speed lights have more than enough power indoors, the only time I would want a strobe is outside when competing with the sun.

By the way I have the softbox in that link, it's pretty good. Not sure why your after one that's long and thin, but the more you feather the softbox away from the subject, the thinner it effectively becomes.

I don't know what your planning to photograph so I can't really make any suggestions other than fill light should always be 'on-camera axis'. Split lighting with two lights is often associated with low-end lighting, especially when they are almost equal in power.
 
Can't really say too much at the moment but I'll show you some results and why I need the bigger soft box late next week.
 
James J said:
Not doing portraits, doing creative scene and product style shots. Got exactly whats required to do both in my setup :)
Click to expand...
My fault sped read your post and read it as you were looking for extra bits. Doh!

As for what i'd like I wouldn't mind some larger soft boxes for my elite pros and again a beauty dish would be fun to play with.

What is tempting but I can't justify it as yet would be the safari li-on setup, got to play with one a few weeks back it's a great bit of kit.
 
GSXRMovistar said:
My fault sped read your post and read it as you were looking for extra bits. Doh!

As for what i'd like I wouldn't mind some larger soft boxes for my elite pros and again a beauty dish would be fun to play with.

What is tempting but I can't justify it as yet would be the safari li-on setup, got to play with one a few weeks back it's a great bit of kit.
Click to expand...

Yeah the power of them especially is something rarely seen tbh. The price of the safari li on's are also really reasonable. I'll let you know how I get on with the 70x140 soft box they do.
 
You don't need the power of studio gear to do that, just some cheap yongnou speed lights would have worked just as well.

Below is from a single speed light

ck1-Edit.jpg
 
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I don't want white backgrounds though or heavily photoshopped images. For that you need studio lighting unless you want some very harsh shadows. You've got one in that image on the bottle cap, losing detail and drawing the eye from the reflection. Looks really out of place on a very bright image with a white background. My 2p of course, yet my decision for my setup is based on a lot of research into exactly the sort of shots I want to do :)
 
To be completely honest I don't even know what your talking about, if you think the shadows were to contrasty then the simple solution would be to move the fill cards closer, or if you didn't want to change the light ratio, use bigger card. Generally though, you actually want some specular highlights to avoid the image looking dull and flat.

Secondly what do you mean by 'studio lighting'.. strobes?
A speed light in a softbox works just the same as a strobe, and won't give you harder shadows. The only benefit to a strobe is power but close up, and indoors, you don't need all that power.
 
Bigger light manipulators require more powerful lighting. Softboxes are required to be 3x larger than what they are taking a photo of to have the absolute best effect on light softness and specular highlights. I'm not saying you can't use a speed light to do product shots at all, but you will be limited down the line in regards to exactly what type of shots you want to do. Plus by the time you start adding all the bits and bobs needed to get those better shots, you might as well have just bought mono bloc head anyway.
 
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