strobe or constant?

[maureennorcross]

I'm going to start taking portaits of families and children i cant decided what i want to use strobe or constant...

constant seems like the better choice for babies and non blinking... but i think that i like the way pictures look with

the strobe.... i was wondering if any of u can give me any advice...

thanks

maureen

[digitmstr]

I prefer strobes for people. It's safer and less heat.

[richard_cochran]

Strobes all the way. Nobody can blink as fast as a strobe, unless perhaps there's a pre-flash involved, but pre-flash isn't necessary for studio lighting. Continuous lighting bright enough for photography will cause pupils to constrict. Continuous lighting is more expensive than strobe for an equivalent aperture and motion stopping ability. Strobe allows your subject to relax and stay cool. There's a good reason it's almost universally used by professional portrait studio photographers, from the local mall photographers who take pictures of kids with Santa all the way through Annie Liebovitz, and just about everyone in between.

[nathan_stiles]

ditto Richard :)

[michael_oxford]

I'm no expert on lighting, but from what my "education" has taught me, this is no contest strobes. lets also not forget that

hot lights shift color balance slightly over time, which can be fixed, but never the less........ and not to mention there kinda

uncomfortable to be under (hence the name, "hot" lights).

[charlesheckel]

The great advantage of continuous lighting over strobes is that you can see what you're getting, which is not to be sneezed at when you're learning. If you do go for strobes--which will be much easier on your subjects and on you--chimp a lot while you're figuring out how to use them. Make test shots and look at them in the LCD. Look at the histogram, which tells you much more about your exposure than the LCD picture. Some strobes have modeling lights--continuous low-wattage lights that tell you how the strobe will perform while you're setting it up. If you haven't got a modeling light, you can cheat with a floodlight held in the position of the strobe. Start with one strobe fired into an umbrella, as close to the subject and your camera as you can get it, and go from there. Remember to protect your lens from stray light from the strobe itself--you only want the light reflected from your subject.

[digitmstr]

Most decent strobes have a modeling light...

[maureennorcross]

thank you all!

[craig_shearman1]

If you're going to shoot children, strobe is the only way to go. Continuous lighting bright enough to get a decent f-stop and shutter speed to capture fidgeting kids (enough depth of field for when they move from the spot you've focused on just as you click the shutter, or motion blur as they move) is going to be considered blinding by the subjects. Kids will squint and their mothers will worry. And don't even think about what happens if a hotlight -- they are VERY hot -- falls on a child or a kid even just brushes against it. And no, fluorescents dont' cut it for light output either. strobe is the only way to go for this.