simple home lighting equipment

[chris_townsend1]

I'm an amateur photographer that has got more serious over the past couple

years... but have not sprung for any studio-type lighting equip. I'm looking

for advice on a simple setup (softbox, umbrella, etc...) for my house - but

it's something I would like to be able to take down with relative ease. I

would mainly be doing portrait work of my family and my 2 month old daughter.

I currently shoot a 30D & 24-70L... 580ex and I have the STE2 for the 580.

Admittingly, I just don't have much knowledge of the studio-lighting equipment

and need some help. Probably looking to spend approximately 500-600 on it,

but I'm pretty flexible. Since I'm not a professional, I can't really justify

much more than that. Thanks in advance!

[cham]

cheap and easy solution is a photek softlighter... i've been trying to get my hands on one of these for awhile as I can only find them in the US... but it's relatively cheap (about $65) and you can use it as an umbrella as well. put that together with a reflector or two and you have a very quick cheap setup for portraits.

 

but you didn't mention where you are or if that's 600 USD or 600 GBP etc...

 

if you want to spend 600GBP and you live in the uk i would spend some of that on a good lighting course and then you won't make a mistake of buying something because of the marketing of the product.

 

other than that look up s t r o b i s t it's a very worthwhile read

[chris_townsend1]

It's $600 U.S. I've seen this lastolite ezybox hotshoe that has just been released (a softbox that my 580ex would attach to), but it seem pretty expensive for what it is and I don't think that would be enough power? ? I think it's about 200 US... but I have not found one at any US retailer yet. Just not sure if I can get my hands on some lights/strobes and umbrella's or softbox's for about $600, and if so, what, how many, and what setup? thanks again.

[michael_gilday]

The 580ex is a plenty powerful flash for portraiture, and with the STE2, you've got the tricky part of off-camera flash taken care of. I'd say your first steps should be to get a good light stand, an adapter to mount the 580 on the stand, and some sort of light modifier - a Softlighter, like mentioned previously, or some other type of softbox or diffuser - generally, for portraiture, the bigger the better. One reflector, some inexpensive lengths of fabric for backdrops, and you're pretty well got the basics covered.

[w.smith]

You can also invest in 1 or 2 flashguns, and 1 or 2 cheap tripods to set them up on, and 1

or 2 optical slave triggers (US $9.99 at Ebay last I looked). And a couple pieces of

foamcore from Home Depot for reflectors.

You'll have plenty 'oomph' and endlessly variable lighting possibilities. Inclusing faking

'softboxes' and balancing shadows. And it easily stows away.

[chris_townsend1]

Michael, with the softlighter, how do you mount the the attachment to the flash? Seems like it's not "sealed" from looking at the pictures... or is there another attachment you have to buy for specific flashes to work? Also, what attachment and where would you get it from to attach the flash to a stand? Sorry for the stupid questions, just hard to get much info when the only actual store you can go in is a wolf camera... thanks again.