 Jennifer S |
Is this lighting a good starter?? I am driving myself INSANE trying to find a good starter lighting kit for an inexpensive price. I found a set that was a little more than I wanted to spend, but has what I'm looking for. They are these: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=48848&is=REG Lighting has definitely been the hardest part of getting my photography equipment. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much!
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Denyse Clark |
Jennifer- post your note in the studio photography thread... the people in there are great and they live & breath studio lighting :) I'm agonizing over the same thing, but am taking a class starting later this month at a local community darkroom. It's 6 weeks of studio lighting, so I'm excited to get some tips from them.
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Jennifer S |
Thanks Denyse, I'll do that! :o)
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Debby A. Tabb |
GOOD DAY JENNIFER, I AM SORRY TO SAY THAT I BELEIVE THIS WOULD NOT BE A GOOD CHOICE FOR LIGHTING. WHY DON'T YOU EMAIL ME WITH WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, HOW MUCH ROOM YOU WANT TO COVER, AND HW MUCH YOU WANT TO SPEND. I WILL TRY TO HELP YOU OUT. THIS COMPANY MAKES A VERY, VERY GOOD SET OF LIGHTING- BUT THERE IS A REASON THEY DON'T PUT THE SMITH VECTOR NAME ON IT. THEY WANT IT TO BE SEEN FOR THE HUGH QUALITY THAT IT IS. WHAT EVER I CAN DO TO HELP, DEBBY TABB
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Jennifer S |
May I ask why this isnt a good choice?
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Mark Feldstein |
Well, I can probably answer that Jen. Reason is because they're hot lights or tungsten. Unless you're just planning on shooting room interiors on tungsten balanced film, or whatever digital camera setting you have for that, then no. I wouldn't. If you plan to use these for portraits, you'll likely fry your subject, or perhaps just slow roast them. The stands are flimsy and the clamps start to slip after a short time. They ought to come with a couple of pairs of oven mitts. When buying any type of studio lighting, you need to consider the usage, whether you want them to be portable and how portable, i.e., whether you need them to run off battery pack, how much light you need them to put out at maximum power (watt seconds for strobe lighting) and what type of modifiers you plan to use, like softboxes, umbrellas, and so forth. You also need to consider versatility and interchangability of parts. Ideally, you want a system, not just a couple of lights. A system will let you interchange modifiers with different size heads, like a 250 w/s head vs. a 1000 w/s head should let you use the same size umbrella or softbox ring attachment. My own personal preference these days is Bowens monolights that are strobes with modeling lights and are available also in small kits from B&H often on special there. I now have seven of them ranging in power from 2 at 750 W/s to (I think) it's 2000 w/s. They're compact, travel well, durable, work great in any light modifier I want to use including Chimera softboxes or strip banks or umbrellas. Calumet sells Bowens lights, slightly modified with a calumet label. Another nice thing about a monolight is that you can start with just one. And, you only need to take what you need on an assignment. While I have two pack light systems, one a Norman P2000 and Speedotron Brown Line system, they're pretty heavy and bulky to travel with, so they generally stay in the studio on roller carts. My suggestion is for you to save your money until you can afford something along the lines of at least a single light 1000 w/s that can be ratio'd down to 250 or even 125 w/s. This adds versatility too to your lighting set-ups as well. You can do a lot with a single light and a fill card for portraits especially to give the portrait shadow and depth and drama. And, a 1000 w/s light will light an average sized room when bounced off a clean white ceiling. As I said, I prefer Bowens lighting, but you should also look around for others AND consider buying used (though not on e-bay unless you REALLY know what you're looking for and what questions to ask). In this particular arena, you really get what you pay for. If you plan on doing this work for income, you don't want cheap lighting. You need pro grade for those reasons I mentioned. You can get good and you can get cheap, but you can't get good and cheap. ;>) Hope you're not thoroughly confused, but again, I wouldn't buy that SV rig and I certainly wouldn't buy a hot light set-up especially for doing portraits, indoors or out. Motion pictures? Yeah, they're good for that. Not really too swell for still photography. If you decide to hold off on this purchase and would like me to e-mail you if I come across something in my travels that you might be interested in
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