Hot lights vs strobes

[marlabmarrs]

<p>I'm a young photographer. I've been shooting for about six years. Mostly portraits here recently. I've only ever used natural light though and now I'm looking into maybe buying some lighting equipment. I'm on a very tight budget, and I'm looking for something fairly cheep.<br>

I guess my questions are should I go with hot lights or strobes and why or why not. And for someone to point me in the right direction as to what kind of lighting I might want to look into.</p>

 

[dhbebb]

<p>Strobes are probably ultimately the most useful, but cheap strobes are either old and unreliable or very low powered. Something like this<br>

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Studio-Softbox-1000W-Photo-Studio-Continuous-Light-Kit-/260792833223?pt=UK_Photography_StudioEquipment_RL&hash=item3cb876d4c7<br>

can be useful - essentially anything can be used for photographic lighting as long as you have some means of diffusing it (a very cheap option is the halogen lamps sold for construction sites). Cold lights (CFLs) are more pleasant to use than hot ones - among hot lamps, modern (and expensive) types with fan cooling are more pleasant than the older types, which commonly had bulbs of 1 or 2 kilowatts and no fan! Good lights cost money, but cheap lights can be surprisingly versatile.</p>