Need Good Studio Strobe Lighting Kit

[douglascott]

I shoot studio product shots for a furniture store. For past year, I have been

using two (2) 500W tungsten hot lights, but we've been disappointed with the

results. I had wanted to go with 1000W tungstens through a softbox, but now I

fear I'll melt. My concerns with current set up are the quality of light and

the quantity of light(glare on reflective objects, sufficient coverage for large

objects, shadows, dark backgrounds, etc). Part of the problem is that my

products range from the size of a water bottle to an armoire. I need a lighting

package to cover everything in between. I have no idea the correlation between

watts and watts/seconds (Ws), so I don't know where to start in terms of the

output of light needed. I have a budget of about $1,500 for total lighting

package. Can anyone please help with specific suggestions of good products and

how many to purchase.

 

Thanks - DDS

[brooks short]

A single 4800 ws Speedo pack would be enough light but 2-2400 ws Speedo packs would be more convenient for controling the ratios and doing things like lighting the background seperately and adding kicker lights to furniture.

 

If you're using two or more heads in one 4800ws packs no single head is getting more than 2400ws anyway.

[garry edwards]

You might start with a couple of Blackline or Elinchrom 2,400J Packs with 4 heads, a 6' x 4' and 4' x 3' softboxes, a reflective umbrella, a shoot through umbrella, a large silk, a few honeycomb grids, a mixture of lighting gels, radio triggers, a good flash meter, some heavy duty lightstands, a good tripod or better still a studio stand.

 

There will be a few other bits and pieces needed, but these are the bare essentials if you want to be able to tackle a range of work and produce acceptable quality.

 

You may have to re-think your budget.

[mitchfalk]

Try for a used Speedo 4803 pack and 4 heads, maybe $1200. The rest is for 2 60" Photek Umbrella boxes and stands.

[garry edwards]

With respect, your boss seems to expect you to produce professional results without knowledge, experience, adequate equipment or a serious budget. The proposed budget needs to be higher, a little round figure at the end will be a big help.

 

It simply isn't reasonable to expect to rent a couple of lights and turn out brilliant work, and I very much doubt whether you had accessories to go with them.

 

White balance shouldn't be any kind of a problem - I assume that you didn't have your camera set on auto balance, expecting it to read, analyse and set the colour of the flash? - but of course there is a learning curve and you will need to include a reference point in a shot that you can use as a white balance point when you do the raw conversion.

 

Strobes mix well with daylight, the colour temperature is about the same. Obviously the colour of daylight can vary a lot, but flash is much closer than tungsten lighting. As it happens, I was shooting in a factory today, and ended up mixing flash with daylight without any problems.

[douglascott]

Thanks for the answers. I rented two Elinchrome monolights today (Elinchrome 600S), just to try out. But frankly, outside of the heat reduction compared to my previous hot lights, I couldn't really tell the difference in the quality of light output. I did like the fact that I could alter the strength, but I don't think it was enough to convince my boss, who reviewed some shots, that it was worth putting up any money for all new strobes. I also had alot of problems with white balance. Any suggestions? Or are strobes really not that much different in terms of light quality? How well do strobes mix with other forms of lighting, including daylight?

[douglascott]

Garry - thanks for the response. My boss isn't that bad actually. I'm the one who has been pushing the strobes and I was disappointed that I had talked them up and then achieved ho-hum results. But, as you pointed out in my other thread / question, I wasn't even shooting the flash properly today. As a matter of fact, to make this day even worse, I somehow just blew one of my rented strobe bulbs (I don't suppose that happens naturally to these bulbs?) Is there a good book anyone could recommend on the basics of strobe lighting. I should take a class, but I haven't had much luck finding any in the Miami area.

[frank_meeker]

Doug,

 

Other than the heat from hotlights, in many cases, including furniture, interiors, and cars, they are better than strobe because you see what you will get AS YOU SET THEM UP. As far as light quality goes, the best way to use them in your circumstance is to use light modifiers such as large diffusers, scrims, and white and black foam core boards.

 

Get some 1"x1" wood, some diffuser cloth from someone like Chimera, or a wide roll of drafters velum and make some big, medium, and small diffuser screens (4 x 8', 4 x6' and 2x2').

 

Use net scrims to cut down light and the cards to block and reflect light. This will work better than thousands of dollars of strobes. Get a few more hotlights and get to work!

White balance to tungsten or filter the hotlights with #82 gels (I think-someone help me on this as I can't remember)or use the auto white balance on your digital camera.

Good luck.

 

 

Regards,

 

Frank M.

[douglascott]

Frank - thanks for the reponse. What's the difference between diffuser cloth/screens and scrims? Are they designed to do the same thing or do they have different functions? What about softboxes? For shooting furniture, do softboxes spread out the light enough, or would something larger be needed (e.g. scrims)?

[douglascott]

How many heads could I set up on one 2400 pack? Could I assume that the total output (2400 w/s)divided by the number of heads would equal the w/s per head? For example, if I could put 4 heads on one 2400 pack, would that mean that each head would get 600 w/s?

 

Anything to be aware of if purchasing these used? How best to verify that it's a good, working piece of equipment?

[brooks short]

Doug,

 

Read all about it at www.speedotron.com Look at the Black Line packs and heads.

 

Buying things like used studio flashes from individuals is always a crap shoot. If a flash hasn't been used for a couple of years the condensors can go bad. Buying used from a reputable dealer like KEH or B&H is safer.

[bigrue]

Doug Scott, I agree with the idea of using Speedotron for your assignment. I suggest that you think about using thew Speedotron Brown Line which is very reasonable in price, power, and quality.