Automotive outdoor studio kit.

If you do a search on here there was a huge thread about this sort of thing. Don't think your preferred option came out too well if I recall correctly.
Here
 
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That's a basic studio kit that, with the Travel packs added, can be used mains-free. And it works okay, but the whole kit is heavy, doesn't recycle too quick and has a limited number of pops.

May be fine for what you need, though if you want to do it that way, my choice would be to use Innovatronix packs that will power any studio head.

The alternative is pukka battery powered location kit - lighter, faster, last longer, designed for the job. More expensive, though the Lencarta Safari Li-on is pretty good and much cheaper than most.
 
Cheers for the input guys, had a read of the thread posted above and all it does is mention the safari li-on which is out of budget at the minute sadly, hence looking at the bowens. I don't earn a living from my photography I do it as a keen hobbyist shooting friends cars while building experience so don't want to spend a fortune, I understand the concept behind investing for the future but just not viable at the minute :(
 
safari li-on gives 600w of power i dont think theres much that are cheaper that will give you that sort of power. the pro's i know use anything from the li-on to elinchrom ranger to profoto heads.
 
Maybe have to look into pushing the budget a touch for the elinchrom rangers then.

Are the bowens really that poor? even with an Innovatronix pack? As stated, I have no experience in flash photography and by no means am I looking for professional standard kit, just looking for something to build up my experience and knowledge before I go 'the whole hog' as such.
 
IanBestPhot said:
Maybe have to look into pushing the budget a touch for the elinchrom rangers then.

Are the bowens really that poor? even with an Innovatronix pack? As stated, I have no experience in flash photography and by no means am I looking for professional standard kit, just looking for something to build up my experience and knowledge before I go 'the whole hog' as such.
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Nothing actually wrong with the Bowens at all, just IMHO better ways of doing it for the budget. There's one highly respected member on here swears by them :)
 
IanBestPhot said:
Maybe have to look into pushing the budget a touch for the elinchrom rangers then.

Are the bowens really that poor? even with an Innovatronix pack? As stated, I have no experience in flash photography and by no means am I looking for professional standard kit, just looking for something to build up my experience and knowledge before I go 'the whole hog' as such.
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If it's just as a hobby, would you be better starting with strobist gear? The advantages of full studio gear aren't so critical once you get to cars (recycle times) as they're not moving constantly.
 
Phil V said:
If it's just as a hobby, would you be better starting with strobist gear? The advantages of full studio gear aren't so critical once you get to cars (recycle times) as they're not moving constantly.
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Will struggle for power in daylight.
 
Sorry yes this is for both Day and Night use hence looking at the studio portable kit :) Neglected to mention that :)

Like you say recycle times aren't too much of an issue as the car is stationary.

With the Budget what sort of gear would you be looking at Richard?

Talking around 500-600.
 
Impossible for me to say really Ian. Too many variables outdoors, and cars outdoors is about as tough as it gets in terms of power if you're looking to beat bright sun on a regular basis.

On the other hand, just looking at your Flickr and those statics taken at meets etc on an overcast day, then that's nowhere near so power hungry or difficult. If you could post links to a couple of images similar to those you're looking to do, the The Great TP Collective could tell you what was used.

The Bowens kit you linked will take all your budget, and the Travel Pack is another £500 on top of that. My only comment there is an Innovatronix battery pack gives more options as it will power any head. I would definitely go for softboxes rather than brollies though.
 
HoppyUK said:
The Bowens kit you linked will take all your budget, and the Travel Pack is another £500 on top of that. My only comment there is an Innovatronix battery pack gives more options as it will power any head. I would definitely go for softboxes rather than brollies though.
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TFC hire them for reasonable amount, i'm eager to try them out and compare them to Batpac's which are for the record, a tad overpriced :shrug:.

Ian,

From my experience speedlites are good way of learning the tricks of the trade, they'll cope fine in reasonable lighting conditions, they're relatively cheap compared to high end flash and they weigh nothing! Their downfalls when lighting automotive subjects will be when you are going to be working with e.g. strong sunlight, or like OP have mentioned before in the similar threads they're just not up to scratch in providing a good even spread onto bodywork.

As mentioned previously by Phil, do you think this is something you'll be able to better invest in over jumping straight into flash heads?

I'm justifying the plunging into flash heads because of ^ reasons & spent a year getting to grips with the basics.

I'm also on a budget too with my location setup, if you really wanted to go for flash heads like the bowens i'd suggest taking a good look at my alternative plan as a relative *Budget battery flash head kit*

Sliver of the price going near RRP £1500-£2200 Full Ranger/Profoto Acute Generators. (Got almost all of it now, just need the Explorer!)

My Ranger/AcuteB alternative kit:

£225 Used Profoto Compact 600W Monobloc light
£220 New Profoto RFI 1x4 Stripbox including £40 calumet speedring kit
£430 New Innovatronix Explorer XT SE

For me -the damage is £850...

For yourself you could go cheaper on this with the stripbox and definitely the flash head. I've noticed Chrom EL500's/1000W monoblocs on ebay as low as £50-140..they are used, but they're work horses. Also a Calumet Nova S36/56 will bring that into a budget of almost £600.

Just bear in mind you'll also have to factor in a way of weighting down the flash head and stripbox on light stand, rogue gusts of wind will see you with a nasty repair bill of a broken flash tube. Triggers recommended too, sync leads -well, yeah they're alright. But you are going to want to put some real distance between camera and the lights for some of these shots? Yongnuo RF-603's are your best bet.
Uh, and decent light stand for location use, again would recommend calumet's 3.6m jobbies (or 4.1m if you can strech to budget), they'll give you some height freedom to position your stripbox without doubt that the light stand will fall apart. Again all more cost; approximately good part of just over £100.


In the long term scheme of things it may be a bit of extra kit to lug about but it's lighting away from the plug? You weigh it up... nothing wrong with speedlite's at all with value for buck.

Hope that was useful & insightful from someone who's halfway through the process!

Cheers,

James
 
That's great thanks for the input guys.

I did think of getting 2, maybe 3 430EXII but was unsure whether they would have the oomph to overcome a strong sun, which is why I originally started thinking about the Bowens set up.

With regards to the flickr set with the meet, I wouldn't be using a lighting set up as its alot of walking around, more so if I'm shooting an individual car such as the polo GTi on there.

Maybe as James said I will look more into the 430EXII as a starter to learn the basics then go for a portable studio kit as my skill level progresses, with regards to the 430EXII can you attach a strip softbox to spread light evenly?

Thanks

Ian
 
With a bright sun are ku shooting into it? Could you use a large reflector, or a large scrim on the sun?
 
IanBestPhot said:
That's great thanks for the input guys.

I did think of getting 2, maybe 3 430EXII but was unsure whether they would have the oomph to overcome a strong sun, which is why I originally started thinking about the Bowens set up.

With regards to the flickr set with the meet, I wouldn't be using a lighting set up as its alot of walking around, more so if I'm shooting an individual car such as the polo GTi on there.

Maybe as James said I will look more into the 430EXII as a starter to learn the basics then go for a portable studio kit as my skill level progresses, with regards to the 430EXII can you attach a strip softbox to spread light evenly?

Thanks

Ian
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This thread has got very complicated:shake:
There is a lot of conflicting advice, some good and some not.

Basically there are a lot of different ways of photographing cars outdoors. If you're doing composite shots and spending all your time in PP then you can get away with a lot less in terms of lighting, and some people are managing with just hotshoe flashguns - but the inadequate power means that the feeble light they produce just gets lost in sunlight. If you want to go down that route then fine, but why get expensive camera-branded flashes when you can get more powerful flashes with a different name on them for a fraction of the price?

Bear in mind too that nearly all hotshoe flashes have a mirror-like built in reflector, to boost the low power. Cars have complex, convex and concave shapes that need LARGE softboxes to diffuse the light adequately, and these things eat power. You can't get even lighting from a single hotshoe flashgun fitted to a strip softbox, even if the power is adequate. And umbrellas don't work with the complex shapes, you just get the shape and ribs of the umbrella in the shot, so it has to be softboxes. A powerful barebulb flash system is far better than ordinary hotshoe flashguns for this purpose, but will cost a lot more than cheap hotshoe flashguns, and still has limitations.

Then you have the choice of powerful studio heads, run from battery systems, they work well for this but are bulky and heavy and again, not cheap.

Or you can go the portable route, with powerful battery powered flash systems such as the Elinchrom Ranger, most of the Profoto range, Bron, Lencarta Safari etc. But some of them are seriously overpriced (massive profit margins) and some are more suitable than others.

Years ago, before we had digital and before we had portable flash, we just lit with a massive scrim suspended over the car in sunlight, which cost virtually nothing, and used a few hotshoe flashguns (with no diffusion) to kick some light into areas such as wheel arches. That works too, but requires high levels of skill.
 
Garry Edwards said:
This thread has got very complicated:shake:
There is a lot of conflicting advice, some good and some not.

Basically there are a lot of different ways of photographing cars outdoors. If you're doing composite shots and spending all your time in PP then you can get away with a lot less in terms of lighting, and some people are managing with just hotshoe flashguns - but the inadequate power means that the feeble light they produce just gets lost in sunlight. If you want to go down that route then fine, but why get expensive camera-branded flashes when you can get more powerful flashes with a different name on them for a fraction of the price?

Bear in mind too that nearly all hotshoe flashes have a mirror-like built in reflector, to boost the low power. Cars have complex, convex and concave shapes that need LARGE softboxes to diffuse the light adequately, and these things eat power. You can't get even lighting from a single hotshoe flashgun fitted to a strip softbox, even if the power is adequate. And umbrellas don't work with the complex shapes, you just get the shape and ribs of the umbrella in the shot, so it has to be softboxes. A powerful barebulb flash system is far better than ordinary hotshoe flashguns for this purpose, but will cost a lot more than cheap hotshoe flashguns, and still has limitations.

Then you have the choice of powerful studio heads, run from battery systems, they work well for this but are bulky and heavy and again, not cheap.

Or you can go the portable route, with powerful battery powered flash systems such as the Elinchrom Ranger, most of the Profoto range, Bron, Lencarta Safari etc. But some of them are seriously overpriced (massive profit margins) and some are more suitable than others.

Years ago, before we had digital and before we had portable flash, we just lit with a massive scrim suspended over the car in sunlight, which cost virtually nothing, and used a few hotshoe flashguns (with no diffusion) to kick some light into areas such as wheel arches. That works too, but requires high levels of skill.
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Quite confused now, the plan wasn't to use just one off camera flash but rather 2 or even 3. All with softboxes so what your saying is that still isn't powerful enough??

Like you say lots of conflicting information.
 
IanBestPhot said:
Quite confused now, the plan wasn't to use just one off camera flash but rather 2 or even 3. All with softboxes so what your saying is that still isn't powerful enough??

Like you say lots of conflicting information.
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Power needs are relative to the strength of the ambient light.
In the pitch dark, a candle has enough power. In bright sunlight, with the flash diffused by a large softbox and as close as you can get it to the subject, you will need about 600 Ws of power
 
Garry Edwards said:
Power needs are relative to the strength of the ambient light.
In the pitch dark, a candle has enough power. In bright sunlight, with the flash diffused by a large softbox and as close as you can get it to the subject, you will need about 600 Ws of power
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Thanks Gary, that's made it a bit clearer.

I'll look into the flashes and just experiment with the light as not really prepared to spend over 1k on gear for what is essentially just a hobby at the minute. Plus it gives me a chance to experiment with off camera flash as a starting point.
 
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