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Lighting for small home portait studio



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 27th 03, 02:19 PM
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Default Lighting for small home portait studio


I am thinking of getting some studio strobes to take pictures of
friends/family. What power output lights should I be looking at for use in a
20ft square room or smaller.

I have used a single Sunpak 383 off camera with a brolly, and this seems to
give a decent output for my needs, but it is limited in terms light
modifiers. I am worried that I could buy something that's just too powerful
and be unable to get the output low enough for low DOF shots (using a
compact digital camera, probly be upgrading to DSLR soon).

Or would I be better off getting higher power and use ND filter if required?




  #2  
Old October 27th 03, 06:26 PM
Ken Hart
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Default Lighting for small home portait studio


"Enter Your Full Name" wrote in message
...

I am thinking of getting some studio strobes to take pictures of
friends/family. What power output lights should I be looking at for use in

a
20ft square room or smaller.

I have used a single Sunpak 383 off camera with a brolly, and this seems

to
give a decent output for my needs, but it is limited in terms light
modifiers. I am worried that I could buy something that's just too

powerful
and be unable to get the output low enough for low DOF shots (using a
compact digital camera, probly be upgrading to DSLR soon).

Or would I be better off getting higher power and use ND filter if

required?


More power is always better! Just ask Tim Allen (TV show "Home Improvement")

Many of the studio strobes have multiple power levels; some as simple as
half and full-power, others have a continously variable output power level.
Ya pays your money 'n' ya takes your choice!

When all else fails, carry a couple white hankerchiefs. One layer of a white
hankerchief over the strobe is about one stop of light reduction. If the
strobe has a hot modeling light, try not to start a fire with the
hankerchief!

Ken Hart


  #3  
Old October 28th 03, 04:07 AM
William Lam
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Default Lighting for small home portait studio

I've started off like you , with a Vivitar shoe mount flash .
And move to a Novatron 500 watts Kit about 10 plus years ago.
Recently I have move up to a Calument Travelite 1500 watts Kit .
I wanted to shoot with an aperture of f/32 with my 4x5 view camera,
the Novatron was not enough power.
All power pack or monolite have adjustments to lower the power .
Or use umbrella to bounce the lighting reducing the intensity .
You can also move the lighting further away from the subject .
I did not regrets getting more power, but did getting less power.

Good Luck in your search .


In article , "Enter Your Full Name"
wrote:

I am thinking of getting some studio strobes to take pictures of
friends/family. What power output lights should I be looking at for use in a
20ft square room or smaller.

I have used a single Sunpak 383 off camera with a brolly, and this seems to
give a decent output for my needs, but it is limited in terms light
modifiers. I am worried that I could buy something that's just too powerful
and be unable to get the output low enough for low DOF shots (using a
compact digital camera, probly be upgrading to DSLR soon).

Or would I be better off getting higher power and use ND filter if required?

  #4  
Old October 29th 03, 05:16 AM
George
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Default Lighting for small home portait studio

I did what you want to do...I'll tell you what I did and why, maybe that'll
help you to make up your mind on what to do.

First, I looked at power pack systems and monolights and decided on
monolights for several reasons:
1) Power packs usually allow you to have the power symmetric (1:1) between
channels or asymmetric (usually just 2:1) between channels...if you have
unlimited space to physically move lights back and forth you could probably
live with that, but I couldn't in a small space so I chose monolights which
can be set independently to any power level I choose.
2) As I was looking at higher total power, the monolights were also
advantageous as I could distribute the load on the wiring of my house rather
than needing to wire a 20A or 30A circuit for the power pack
3) I liked the redundancy in that if the power supply of one light failed I
could still use all the other lights..
4) I could add as many "heads" (more monolights) as I wanted whenever I
wanted
5) I decided to get as much power as I could since I could always reduce the
light (dial-down, reflect, ND on light, ND on camera, etc.)

Features that I looked for in monolights and other considerations:
1) Proportional modeling light so that I'd have an idea what the lighting
would look like
2) Power variable over several f-stops
3) Good availability of reflectors and other accessories and priced
reasonably
4) UV-coated flashtube so that objects being illuminated wouldn't fluoresce
5) Established and stable company because these things aren't cheap

Some of the companies you have to choose from a
Photogenic
Bowens/Calumet
Balcar
Elinchrome
Speedotron
Novatron
White Lightning
Broncolor
Comet
Dyna-Lite
Multiblitz

I went through the list above checking out products and decided on some
Bowens studio flashes. I ruled out some of the above due to features, cost,
versatility, distribution, etc. But all of these makes do get used
professionally.

Good luck.


"Enter Your Full Name" wrote in message
...

I am thinking of getting some studio strobes to take pictures of
friends/family. What power output lights should I be looking at for use in

a
20ft square room or smaller.

I have used a single Sunpak 383 off camera with a brolly, and this seems

to
give a decent output for my needs, but it is limited in terms light
modifiers. I am worried that I could buy something that's just too

powerful
and be unable to get the output low enough for low DOF shots (using a
compact digital camera, probly be upgrading to DSLR soon).

Or would I be better off getting higher power and use ND filter if

required?






 




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