Lens or lighting?

scottduffy

scottduffy

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Scott
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Hi Folks,

Well Christmas is just around the corner and i was planning on buying a 85mm or 100mm lens to use for portraits but today having been messing about with my flash off camera i was wondering whether i should buy some ore lighting equipment instead. I would have a budget of maybe £250. I am really hoping to learn how to use light and improve my portraits so i was wondering if there is a lighting bible as such. Something i could read that could allow me understand why light has the affects it has on photographs.

Anyway back to the original question would you continue with the one speedlight and softbox set up and buy a new lens or stick with the 17-55 IS and purchase new lighting gear? I'm not sure whether i would be better with a second hand double mains powered lighting kit or get another couple of speedlights and softboxes, umbrellas or something like a beauty dish. I'm open to all suggestions.

To give you an idea of what i'll be shooting. My main subject is coming up on 3 years old and i have 3 other nephews around the same age so mainly kids. Indoors have been the norm up till now but with the yn622c triggers outside is obviously a possibility too so speedlights could come in handy.

What would you get? What lighting tools have you found to be invaluable or that you would be without?

Again thanks in advance
 
Buy the lens first, you have enough lighting to experiment with, get hold of the speedlighters handbook and keep pushing yourself in natural light and with the flashgun.

Next time you will know that you really need some more lighting.
 
Cheers mate. Never heard of him. Ah strobist.com. I'll get onto that. I've glanced at it a few times but never in depth.
 
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You don't need a new lens! 17-55/2.8 makes a great portrait lens.

IMHO you would be better off with a studio head - do more, do it better, learn faster - and all options open to build on. Studio flash has easy power, fast recycle, and a modelling lamp, and it's really not expensive. Lencarta Smartflash-2 is £110 and a quality product, just the job. You can use it with speedlites in positions where you don't need much power so they recycle fast (background, hair light etc) (y) http://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting-shopfront/flash-heads/smartflash-200-studio-flash head
 
You don't mention which body you're using. If a crop sensor body, you may find 100mm a bit long. FWIW I have a 100mm Macro and it's a bit long for portraits on my 50D. It works fine and the images are nice, just find myself a bit too far away from the subject. Tend to use the 70mm end of my 70-200 f/2.8, but it's a bit bulky for portraits though again the images are fine. Indoors, a 50 f/1.4 would I think be pretty handy, outdoors perhaps an 85 f/1.8... The 85mm would I think work nicely on a full frame too, though I have neither.
 
Hi guys, thanks for the replies. It's a 50d I'm using too.

I know the 17-55 is a cracking lens I was just thinking outside I might be better with a tad more reach. The studio head is certainly an option though and I'll have a read into them.

Would I just choose a lencarta softbox too or would you recommend something else?
 
scottduffy said:
Hi guys, thanks for the replies. It's a 50d I'm using too.

I know the 17-55 is a cracking lens I was just thinking outside I might be better with a tad more reach. The studio head is certainly an option though and I'll have a read into them.

Would I just choose a lencarta softbox too or would you recommend something else?
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You could probably do with a longer lens anyway, for general stuff, but only you know if you'd need it for portraits. Be handy sometimes for sure, but from what you've said not quite an essential.

Lencarta make good softboxes, strongly recommend the quick push-up type (ProFold), and there's lots of choice. Have a look at Bessel too. Personally, I'd get umbrellas to begin with - white, silver and shoot-through. Lots of variety there, then choose a softbox when you know what you want and have some budget. There's nothing magical about softboxes though (same with 'beauty dishes' too, but that's another story) and umbrellas have some advantages - cheap as chips, easy set-up/down, need less working space - plus great light :)
 
minnnt said:
Never realised the smart flashes were so cheap!
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I think having studio lighting really helped with my photography. The smartflashes are great - I've got 3 of the Mk1 (bought 2 second hand - so even better value!).

Agree about not needing another lens at the moment - you'd be able to get some great portraits with a smart flash/speedlight and a reflector.

Shaheed
 
minnnt said:
Never realised the smart flashes were so cheap!
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Bargains those Smartflashes and they make no concessions to economy.

A lot of folks are drawn towards speedlites through a number of false assumptions, ie speedlites are cheaper, easier to use, small and light, have auto-TTL etc. But actually, plenty of studio heads are cheaper than a decent speedlite, couldn't be easier to use, and you don't actually need or want auto-TTL for studio work. Also, in practise a lot of the cost and size/weight/convenience aspects are down to stands and softboxes and stuff, and that's the same with speedlites.
 
HoppyUK said:
Bargains those Smartflashes and they make no concessions to economy.

A lot of folks are drawn towards speedlites through a number of false assumptions, ie speedlites are cheaper, easier to use, small and light, have auto-TTL etc. But actually, plenty of studio heads are cheaper than a decent speedlite, couldn't be easier to use, and you don't actually need or want auto-TTL for studio work. Also, in practise a lot of the cost and size/weight/convenience aspects are down to stands and softboxes and stuff, and that's the same with speedlites.
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The only advantage of ttl speedlights is being able to make power adjustments from the camera (using the flash in manual) using a yongnuo 622 tx. Even this doesn't make me want to use the speed lights more!
 
Think I will give these more consideration. Can I just plug my cheapy triggers into them using a PC synch cable?

Only ever use TTL when I'm covering events and never when doing portraits so that's not a factor for me.
 
I used the rf603 yongnuo triggers initially on one of the lights. This then triggered the other lights!
 
Sir SR said:
The only advantage of ttl speedlights is being able to make power adjustments from the camera (using the flash in manual) using a yongnuo 622 tx. Even this doesn't make me want to use the speed lights more!
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Smartflash-2 has a neat optional extra plug-in trigger and remote power controller (included in kits). Elinchroms have the same kind of receivers built-in - just add a Skyport trigger (included in kits).
 
So could I use a trigger on the flash hotshoe and a trigger on the sf2 with PC cable both triggered by the sender on the camera hotshoe?

Sorry it's probably easy stuff I know, but this is all new to me.
 
One sending on the camera, one receiving on the SF2. Also optical slaves if you have further lights.
 
minnnt said:
So could I use a trigger on the flash hotshoe and a trigger on the sf2 with PC cable both triggered by the sender on the camera hotshoe?

Sorry it's probably easy stuff I know, but this is all new to me.
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Yes, easy.

Or as Shaheed says, Smartflash has a built-in optical slave that will pick up the flash from a speedlite and fire off that - providing it gets a decent 'look' at the flash, ie it may not if you're using the speedlite on the background. Or you could do it the other way around if your speedlite has optical slave built-in as many do.
 
All studio flash heads, and some hotshoe flashes, have a built in slave cell that will 'see' another flash and fire in response. The clever ones (including the entire new Lencarta ranges) have a S.2 setting, which when activated only fires the flash head in response to every alternate flash, this is so that it will disgregard the preflash fired by some hotshoe flashguns/built in flashguns.

Relying on a slave cell isn't really good practice for the reasons that Hoppy gave - the lower the level of flash power, and the higher the level of ambient lighting, the less reliable that method is, but it's still pretty good.
IF your camera has a sync socket, you can plug a lead into it, the other end of the lead plugs into the back of any flash head. This is very old technology and can be unreliable because, with movement, the cables frequently work loose or fall out of the camera, some form of radio trigger is much better.

Then there are Infra Red (IR) transmitters that plug into the camera hotshoe. Again, old technology, limited range and they require reasonably good line of sight.
The best option for most people is a simple radio trigger, the transmitter part goes into the camera hotshoe, the receiver part goes into the flash head or flash gun, job done. There are a host of different ones available, the Yongnuo RF-602 is probably ideal for you, and is cheap as chips.

If you buy a single SmartFlash the combined remote control/radio trigger (Wavesync) is extra, if you buy a kit it's included free. This is probably your best option, but it can't be used with another make of studio flash or a hotshoe flashgun, unless you also use a passthrough radio transmitter between it and the camera, and plug a receiver matching the transmitter into the 3rd party flash.
 
Garry Edwards said:
All studio flash heads, and some hotshoe flashes, have a built in slave cell that will 'see' another flash and fire in response. The clever ones (including the entire new Lencarta ranges) have a S.2 setting, which when activated only fires the flash head in response to every alternate flash, this is so that it will disgregard the preflash fired by some hotshoe flashguns/built in flashguns... <snip>
Click to expand...

Might be an idea to mention this in the Smartflash-2 instruction manual Garry ;)
 
minnnt said:
I think I have seen Martin do this with his Godox/Atom/Genesis to gain HSS on youtube.

£400 is a pretty good price for the kit with softboxes etc.
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Missing from the above is that if you buy a Smartflash 2 kit, you'll get the remote triggers that allow setting of power remotely for both heads.
At least I didn't think it was made that clear.
 
Makes that kit seem even more worth it now - that's what I'd buy if I was starting all over again!
 
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