Flash/Studio advice for newbie.

Garry Edwards said:
Yes, that kit is rubbish. But, if you failed miserably with a particular shot, then the failure will be much more down to lack of knowledge to lack of equipment, knowledge (and care) trumps equipment every time, and people who have the benefit of knowledge can usually manage with limited equipment - it just takes them longer than if they had the right stuff, and there are some shots where equipment is more important than others. Any lighting equipment though, regardless of build quality, light quality, colour rendition index, colour temperature or anything else, does need to be capable of being used with light shaping tools, and also needs to be capable of a fairly wide range of adjustment.
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Yeah I appreciate that knowledge and experience is key, my comment about not liking rubbish equipment is not because I don't think it will give the results, but that it's such a pain to use that it takes the fun away.


OK, I just said that knowledge trumps gear, and it does - but the cheap flashes are just as bad as the cheap continuous lighting. Umbrellas are often under-appreciated, they can be incredibly useful for a lot of shoots, but they can also be a very bad choice for product-style shoots, it's pretty impossibile when the light source itself isn't flat, and is also unevenly lit - there's no point in making life hard for yourself by using tools that cannot produce the results you want. Generally, with softboxes you get exactly what you pay for, and there is a reason why some are dirt cheap.
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Thanks, interesting.

Do you actually need a backdrop? Portraits, which at the moment you don't do, often do need something, but what you're talking about here is creative still life work, where everything is entirely under your control. Usually, a plain wall is all you need, at most. At the moment my studio is 3700 sq ft (it will be bigger soon) and I could put up a lot of different backdrops but I hardly ever do, I just use either a white or a grey one and, depending on the lighting, it will end up anywhere from pure white to pure black, or in any colour of my choice. If no light reaches the background, it will always end up black.
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My space is very limited and it's extremely difficult to get the subject any distance away from other things in the room so they still end up getting lit no matter how I angle the light. I just a black towel for those camera shots and a bit of PP for the bits that still showed up.

It isn't about having enough power, it's all about hotshoe flashguns having a fixed reflector that doesn't distribute the light around the softbox, which means that the illumination is very uneven and that the size of the softbox is extremely restricted.
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Now that you said that, that's what I was told before tbh. It wasn't the power per se as I'd said before, but the light distribution. I made the leap that it was lack of power that meant it couldn't fill the softbox evenly :oops: :$

You did well with those shots. LED lighting is usable with shots that basically don't include colour, and where any colour that is there doesn't need to be rendered accurately. But, when you start using studio flash, it will be light a breath of fresh air:)
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Thanks :)
 
simonbarker said:
The Lencarta kit gets recommended because it's the cheapest 'good' studio head that has a warranty, you can actually get cheaper like a Godox DE300 but I wouldn't fancy them for warranty purposes.
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Just been thinking about this, and one thing I've considered is buying used and so I wouldn't get warranty anyway. As I have no idea about studio flash heads are there any makes that people can recommend that are decent enough quality but won't break the bank, probably something along the line of the smartflash 2 by lencarta?

Also, with studio flashes can you use HSS as I struggle to block ambient light during the day?
 
snerkler said:
Just been thinking about this, and one thing I've considered is buying used and so I wouldn't get warranty anyway. As I have no idea about studio flash heads are there any makes that people can recommend that are decent enough quality but won't break the bank, probably something along the line of the smartflash 2 by lencarta?

Also, with studio flashes can you use HSS as I struggle to block ambient light during the day?
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No, you can't use HSS with studio flash heads (or at least not with the vast majority) because HSS requires the use of IGBT technology, as used by hotshoe flashguns. But you can use tail end synch, with a suitable trigger. It is however very unlikely that you will need to, unless you have a shaft of sunlight falling directly onto your subject - in which case it's a much better idea simply to stick something in front of the window.
 
snerkler said:
Just been thinking about this, and one thing I've considered is buying used and so I wouldn't get warranty anyway. As I have no idea about studio flash heads are there any makes that people can recommend that are decent enough quality but won't break the bank, probably something along the line of the smartflash 2 by lencarta?
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You'll find this funny but there's not much cheaper second hand either, the two most common are probably Bowens and Elinchrom, an Elinchrom D-lite 2 will range from £70-100 but you'll need the IT or RX versions for a built in trigger which increases the cost and a Bowens Gemini 200 is probably about £100.

There are older heads available like a Bowens Gemini 125 or Elinchrom Prolinca's but they're not worth the money saved as you kinda need the power adjustment of a more modern head, if cost is the only factor there's also stuff like Interfit EX/Stellar/EXD. I think Interfit has the cheapest 2 head kits with a proper mounting system second hand at roughly £100 (I used to have a million of the things once upon a time) and if you decide to go for them do so with the understanding these are bad heads by today's standards but they are exceedingly cheap.

You don't often see much second hand Lencarta equipment, it pops up from time to time but I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
simonbarker said:
You'll find this funny but there's not much cheaper second hand either, the two most common are probably Bowens and Elinchrom, an Elinchrom D-lite 2 will range from £70-100 but you'll need the IT or RX versions for a built in trigger which increases the cost and a Bowens Gemini 200 is probably about £100.

There are older heads available like a Bowens Gemini 125 or Elinchrom Prolinca's but they're not worth the money saved as you kinda need the power adjustment of a more modern head, if cost is the only factor there's also stuff like Interfit EX/Stellar/EXD. I think Interfit has the cheapest 2 head kits with a proper mounting system second hand at roughly £100 (I used to have a million of the things once upon a time) and if you decide to go for them do so with the understanding these are bad heads by today's standards but they are exceedingly cheap.

You don't often see much second hand Lencarta equipment, it pops up from time to time but I wouldn't hold my breath.
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Thanks a lot :)
 
simonbarker said:
What's so bad about the DE300 if you get a working unit?
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The stated performance figures are poor and the actual performance figures are far worse, reliability is poor and nobody in the UK can repair them.

Other than that, they're OK:)
 
Thanks for all the help guys. I will keep a lookout for some secondhand gear but if I get too impatient I'll just buy the one flash head and soft box for now and see how I get on. If I need light from both sides I could always take two shots and stitch them in PS :LOL:

The kits do look better value but I don't have £300-400 to spend.
 
simonbarker said:
T

That Photosel is actually pretty decent, it's got those god awful lanyard hooks for the inner diffuser but other than that you would notice no real difference from using it over a £200 Profoto softbox but I would probably lean towards a Bessel easy up softbox as there's no faffing about with assembly which is handy in a small home space: http://www.bessel.co.uk/acatalog/Speedbox-Softboxes.html

.
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Just looked at the Bessel speedbox and I assume it works similar to this, in which case it looks a great option?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26zF15_Bvv0
 
Garry Edwards said:
Different product, but it works in a similar way.
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Thanks, yeah I appreciate it's a different product ;) Anyway, just ordered a 60 x 90cm one to give me a bit more flexibility than a 60 x 60cm, will just have to see how well my speedlight can fill it until I can get a flash head. The Bessel combs with a honeycomb too which is good.
 
Getting bigger, does the speed light have the oomph to fill the soft box? Some manufacturers do a multi head fitting, to put up to four speedlights into a soft box, but if you are buying four speed lights, you have to ask the question whether you might be better off with a suitably specced flash head running off mains or a battery?
 
shreds said:
Getting bigger, does the speed light have the oomph to fill the soft box? Some manufacturers do a multi head fitting, to put up to four speedlights into a soft box, but if you are buying four speed lights, you have to ask the question whether you might be better off with a suitably specced flash head running off mains or a battery?
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That's what I don't know and will find out. I do plan on getting a flash head though so bought with this in mind. Above someone said that my flash should be able to fill 80 x 80 softbox so thought it should therefore be OK with 60 x 90 :confused:
 
snerkler said:
That's what I don't know and will find out. I do plan on getting a flash head though so bought with this in mind. Above someone said that my flash should be able to fill 80 x 80 softbox so thought it should therefore be OK with 60 x 90 :confused:
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It'll probably be "OK" with it, certainly softer than direct flash obviously, but the main issue with speedlights and softboxes I believe is rather to do with the in built reflector, since it's firing all it's light forward, a soft box will never be as good on a speedlight than it will with a bare bulb (well, unless you have a bare bulb speedlight but they're pricey)
 
KitsuneAndy said:
It'll probably be "OK" with it, certainly softer than direct flash obviously, but the main issue with speedlights and softboxes I believe is rather to do with the in built reflector, since it's firing all it's light forward, a soft box will never be as good on a speedlight than it will with a bare bulb (well, unless you have a bare bulb speedlight but they're pricey)
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There is the trick of modifying a stofen type diffuser to create more of a bare bulb effect.

I've never tried it but it's worth a go.
 
snerkler said:
That's what I don't know and will find out. I do plan on getting a flash head though so bought with this in mind. Above someone said that my flash should be able to fill 80 x 80 softbox so thought it should therefore be OK with 60 x 90 :confused:
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On the bright side it's easy to check, just take a photo of the front of the softbox and you can see how much of a good job the flash is doing of filling it evenly based on how uniform the light on the front diffuser appears. If it's massively uneven well all the more incentive to get a studio head.
 
simonbarker said:
On the bright side it's easy to check, just take a photo of the front of the softbox and you can see how much of a good job the flash is doing of filling it evenly based on how uniform the light on the front diffuser appears. If it's massively uneven well all the more incentive to get a studio head.
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Oh the incentive's there, it's the finances that aren't :(
 
So my Bessel 60x90cm softbox arrived today and I'm considering sending it back as I found it a bit big to be using it in my small man cave, was just a bit too awkward. At present the largest thing I'm considering shooting is a bottle of rum, would 40x40cm be too small for this?
 
snerkler said:
So my Bessel 60x90cm softbox arrived today and I'm considering sending it back as I found it a bit big to be using it in my small man cave, was just a bit too awkward. At present the largest thing I'm considering shooting is a bottle of rum, would 40x40cm be too small for this?
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Lighting works off the concept of relative size, a light that's large relative to the subject produces a soft light and the opposite holds true, a light that's small relative to the subject produces a hard light. So, the actual size isn't as important as what you do with it.

In your case by going with a softbox which is about the same size as your subject you're going to be stuck with hard light, which is fine if that's what you're after.
 
simonbarker said:
Lighting works off the concept of relative size, a light that's large relative to the subject produces a soft light and the opposite holds true, a light that's small relative to the subject produces a hard light. So, the actual size isn't as important as what you do with it.

In your case by going with a softbox which is about the same size as your subject you're going to be stuck with hard light, which is fine if that's what you're after.
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And relative size is also affected by distance - double the distance and the effective size reduces by 75%.
Typically, if you want to produce diffused specular highlights on a flat surface then the softbox (or other light source needs to be not less than 3x the size of the subject, and very nearly touching it. most (not all) bottles are far from flat, they are convex, and because of this the softbox needs to be much larger.
But if you light it to avoid specular highlights then there is no need to make those specular highlights diffused, and this can be done simply by using brightfield lighting, where the light passes through the bottle instead of reflecting off of it, and then there is no need for a large softbox - not that I would describe 60 x 90cm as large anyway.

I've done quite a few tutorials that involve diffused specular highlights, graduated specular highlights brightfield lighting, darkfield lighting and lighting bottles, and they are all indexed on the front page of the Lencarta Lighting Centre
 
Unfortunately - when it comes to light (relative) size matters.
As above really - there's no substitute for size, we have to live with the physics of it.
 
OK, so following from the advice above I've decided to keep the large softbox and just struggle with space. Reasonably happy with my first attempt with the softbox. Thanks for all the advice.
 
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