Beginner Lighting Solutions for Photography and Video Shoots

Kenny MacLeod

Kenny MacLeod

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Kenny
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Dear all, I have recently bought (read: blown most of my budget) on a Canon 760D with which, I am most pleased. The purpose behind buying the camera (I previously had 400D) was to allow me to take my family shooting to the next level and, more importantly, to allow me to shoot video content for my business. I'm happy with the equipment, lenses, audio mic, etc I have for this purpose but I need lighting solutions to try and cover both bases.

At the moment I have a Canon Speelite 430 EX II, a diffuser hood and a reflector; equipment that has allowed me to get some pretty decent shots. What I lack is off-camera flash capability, better diffusion (i.e. umbrella, softbox) and a second source of light. I've got a newborn son and I'm aiming for some nice studio shots of him as he ages. I'm no professional, but I'm looking to get as close to professional studio shots as I can through hard work and no doubt a lot of trial and error.

In another discussion it was suggested that a second speedlite, remote control for both and 2x diffusing umbrellas on mounts would give me a lot of control over my lighting. However, none of this equipment helps at all with the video lighting and, ideally, I'd like to kill two birds with one stone to keep the costs down.

With regards to video I'm mostly looking for "not terrible". In other words, I don't need the lighting, sound and studio environment to be BBC quality - I just need it to not look like amateur hour.

I can't help but wonder if real budget stuff like this lighting kit would give me sufficient lighting (and that glint in the eye) for making my videos (mostly indoor). With all of this I'm not really bothered about brand or build quality because none of this equipment will be carted around. I need maximum bang for buck and will happily put up with flimsy stands if it keeps the cost down but actually solves the problem of studio light.

Advice appreciated on how to get better off camera lighting for baby/family photography and a lighting set up for making business videos. Killing two birds with one stone would be awesome but I appreciate this may not be possible. Ideally, I'd like to spend less than £300 all in. Please feel free to probe further and ask questions if I haven't given enough detail about my problem/requirements.

Thanks,
Kenny
 
I'll cut to the chase, unless you're planning to spend big bucks, then 2 birds with one stone is a bit too much to ask.

For photography, flash gives you great options, it's predictable and cheap (relatively).

For video, continuous lighting that's cheap is a bit 'meh' but works ok so long as your standards aren't too high. Continuous lighting that's versatile is very expensive, generally hot and unwieldy.

It sounds mean, but if you pause a still from cheap TV programmes, switch on your photo critique voice and you'll see the image is appalling. You can get away with OK lighting for video, because we're caught up watching the movement. Movie quality lighting is thousands of watts and delivered on trucks, the outcome of which is... It looks as good as photographs.
 
You know, I had a youtube video open that was lit with this BPS kit and your point is made very well. It was absolutely fine for what I want/need in my video footage but a paused still isn't quite there for photography. That being said, in said video not all the bulbs were on and I wonder if perhaps I could use the BPS kit to give me good multi-angle fill light for my subject that I could combine with bounce flash from the speedlite to illuminate my subject?
 
With regards to video I'm mostly looking for "not terrible". In other words, I don't need the lighting, sound and studio environment to be BBC quality - I just need it to not look like amateur hour.


With that kit it will.

TBH - reckon on spending far more then your £300 budget on this. I have a single continuous light amongst my stuff. That one light was bought for a very specific purpose and thats all its good for (its very good at it though) and it still cost more then your budget. 125 watt of light is less then a speed light will deliver and cause you all sorts of issues as continuous light. Ive not proof but I bet that setup struggles with a consistent colour too.

As the saying goes, buy cheap,buy twice. That looks like a false economy.

Atleast buy something like this with your cash http://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting/continuous-lighting/cool-light-5lite-softbox-light.
 
boyfalldown said:
Atleast buy something like this with your cash http://www.lencarta.com/studio-lighting/continuous-lighting/cool-light-5lite-softbox-light.
Click to expand...

And if you do... Don't try any photography with it. ;)

Kenny MacLeod said:
You know, I had a youtube video open that was lit with this BPS kit and your point is made very well. It was absolutely fine for what I want/need in my video footage but a paused still isn't quite there for photography. That being said, in said video not all the bulbs were on and I wonder if perhaps I could use the BPS kit to give me good multi-angle fill light for my subject that I could combine with bounce flash from the speedlite to illuminate my subject?
Click to expand...

Blunt alert, the colour you'll get from those will render you apoplectic if you try to mix them with flash. You really can't mix continuous with flash unless you're making a feature out of the colour differences.
 
First off, forget about the kit in your first post, it's total junk. There are 2 clues to this, 1 is the price and the second is the use of the word "professional". They claim that each bulb is 125 watts, which if true is nowhere near enough (even leaving aside the doubtful quality of the light produced) and my guess is that they are likely to be around 35 watts, "equivalent" to a tungsten light of 125 watts, which is nothing. Your second link is a kit that I do know, the bulbs are in fact just 35 watts each.

Phil is right, you need continuous lighting for video and flash for still photography, and cheap continuous lighting isn't good enough for video and a total waste of time and money for still photography.
I've done a bit of video lighting - a long way removed from feature films but I've done studio based video lighting for TV commercials, where everything has to be spot on and every 1/10th second of video has to sell, and even for that we're talking about big, and very expensive equipment.
We're going to be introducing new video LED lights in a couple of months or so, they'll be at least as good as anything that's available now, but towards the budget end and certainly not broadcast standard. We're currently doing a series of in house product advertising videos, we're using these LED lights for them and we're getting pretty good results, but at 1500 watts equivalent for each light, our videographer is complaining that noise is just about visitible some shots, which is telling me that anything less powerful just won't cut it - and that's with shooting at wide aperture, for effect.

We do have the QuadLite, which produces the equivalent of 1600 watts (which I see Hugh has linked to) , and it's good light quality with a high CRI rating, but it's fluorescent and because of this it can only really be used with the supplied softbox, which is a bit limiting...

Some people buy one of our studio lighting kits, which of course are much faster in use than speedlights, and far more versatile, and use their modelling lamps for video use, but personally I think that it's a compromise because of the limited power of the modelling lamps.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm looking to try and get a hold of some pretty high power E27 CFL's in the 100-125W range that are daylight balanced and have a CRI of 90+. The replacement bulbs for the Lencarta are about the only ones I can find, but I'd look to look at all options. I'm usually pretty nifty with google but really struggling here. There are loads of options on Amazon and fleebay but they are either >84 CRI or completely omit the information. Either I'm completely mucking up my search or there is a gap in the market for 100W+ 5500K high CRI CFL's?!
 
Kenny MacLeod said:
Thanks for the advice guys. I'm looking to try and get a hold of some pretty high power E27 CFL's in the 100-125W range that are daylight balanced and have a CRI of 90+. The replacement bulbs for the Lencarta are about the only ones I can find, but I'd look to look at all options. I'm usually pretty nifty with google but really struggling here. There are loads of options on Amazon and fleebay but they are either >84 CRI or completely omit the information. Either I'm completely mucking up my search or there is a gap in the market for 100W+ 5500K high CRI CFL's?!
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It's not a gap in the market, it's a niche that's so small no one cares about filling it.

The sad fact is that >90% of people buying CFL for photography are idiots that wouldn't appreciate the difference between 80% and 90% CRI
 
Hahah, fair point well made.

Anyone got thoughts on or experience with these 45W LEDs. Remembering of course, the application is 90% video and 10% photography (and only used for photography if they give a pleasing result (also, mostly for babies and animals)).
 
Hi,

there's no "cheap", if the quality should not be a compromise. On our market (Czech Republic), some Chinese brands appeared. And those are either a kind of a junk, or they cost more. So e.g. for photography, we are using Elinchrom lights - cheaper option of so called brands.

Of course we were asked to do some videos for one local e-shop. I declined the contract, as we don't have proper lightning for the video. We bought kit similar to what you point to, but man, it was useless even for a product photography and you know - products don't move. We had something like 8 35W bulbs lightning the product table, and in the end we switched to flash lights to do the product photography.

And imagine - your children move and I believe - they move quite fast :) What I mean is, that for the videography, there is no compromise - you just need enough of light. Of course, you can raise your ISO setting, but it will introduce some noise in darker areas, unless your camera is something like the 5D III level.

So - what kind of lights I would be looking into? No tungsteen, maybe a halogen (too hot), HMI (if you have enough of money), but in the end I think, that the answer is - LED. Look into Aputure, Litepanels, etc. offerings. My dream is to have fresnel focusable lights, something like Zylight, which could be used even for photoshoots, but that is completly different price level :)

Best regards,
Petr
 
petr | 2zone studio said:
Hi,

there's no "cheap", if the quality should not be a compromise. On our market (Czech Republic), some Chinese brands appeared. And those are either a kind of a junk, or they cost more. So e.g. for photography, we are using Elinchrom lights - cheaper option of so called brands.

Of course we were asked to do some videos for one local e-shop. I declined the contract, as we don't have proper lightning for the video. We bought kit similar to what you point to, but man, it was useless even for a product photography and you know - products don't move. We had something like 8 35W bulbs lightning the product table, and in the end we switched to flash lights to do the product photography.

And imagine - your children move and I believe - they move quite fast :) What I mean is, that for the videography, there is no compromise - you just need enough of light. Of course, you can raise your ISO setting, but it will introduce some noise in darker areas, unless your camera is something like the 5D III level.

So - what kind of lights I would be looking into? No tungsteen, maybe a halogen (too hot), HMI (if you have enough of money), but in the end I think, that the answer is - LED. Look into Aputure, Litepanels, etc. offerings. My dream is to have fresnel focusable lights, something like Zylight, which could be used even for photoshoots, but that is completly different price level :)

Best regards,
Petr
Click to expand...
You are right. For manufacture, China is both the worst and the best. Worst because there are a lot of low tech small factories that just copy each other, badly, and produce products that are just not fit for purpose, and best because they have some of the best engineers in the world, and have proved that they can produce superb, innovative, well-designed products.

But, it's getting tougher out there, domestic demand has slowed down dramatically and will slow down even more, and China is in debt for the very first time. Manufacturers are now trying to bring out too many new products, and judging from some of the lighting products that I've seen, it's just a race to bring out more and more products for less and less money, with no apparent thought given to their fitness for purpose, and there are also compatibility issues, lack of testing, no customer support and lack of quality control.

I think it's pretty obvious that these cheap lighting kits are junk, they cannot be anything else for the money. The real problem is that even some of the expensive stuff is junk too, and much of the marketing is just plain misleading. LED? Yes, LED is tye future but the future isn't here yet. I saw a LED Fresnel Spot in China a while back, it was brilliant and a real quality product, but extremely expensive. Most of the LED stuff that is allegedly designed for photography is totally unsuitable for the purpose, and uses the cheapest components, designed for security lighting. But, marketing is getting better, although better can also mean deceptive, and I saw a video advert the other day for a LED light that claims that it is a full spectrum light - that's just a lie.
 
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