Posted: 1/8/2008 12:59:34 PM EDT
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So I was reading the other thread about this, and had some questions. That got me looking at alien bees site and I notice some startup packages. Mostly doing portrates as well. The wife was tired of paying all the sitting fees and out rageous package stuff, so I bought a xti with the 28-135 IS lens. Buget concious, but not necessarily limited. Would like to keep it under 400, but if you have to spend, you have to. Are any of those any good, or should I mix and match? Also saw a few on B&H as well. She is hoping for the same sort of thing you get from babies R us or wally world for 8x10's and such. |
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Before I attempt to answer your question, I'll ask you one. How much time and effort are you willing to give to learn how to do good portraits? It is not as easy as buying a camera, lights, and a backdrop. There is a lot involved for a home studio. Learning lights, modifiers, key/fill ratios, light placement, camera settings, posing, etc, takes a lot of time. The reason Walmart/ JC Penny, et all can do this relatively cheaply is because they engineer their environments to be cookie cutter. Lights stay in one place, camera stays in one place, baby/kids/whomever does one or two canned poses. Once you learn the technical basic of taking the picture, then you need to learn how to properly edit them as well. Your Canon almost certainly has a red bias for skin tones. Do you know how to conteract that to make skin look it best? What about vignetting, selective coloring, highlight recovery? I'll be honest with you. To do it "right" is probably not as easy as you would think. I've spent about 20K gathering my equipment, and several years learning. I don't always think my stuff is better than what you get at Walmart.  That gets very frustrating.On the other hand, if done well, you CAN take some great pics if you have a good eye, and take the time to learn. (this one isn't exactly a good "portrait", but was a test shot. Most people couldn't tell that, though): 
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I used to do quite a bit of photography in college. So some of the terms you mention are familar, but I don't know what they mean at the moment. I do know things like the temp of the light makes a difference in coloring. All the stuff I did before was large format 3x4 film. I used the studio in the school, and also made a light box for myself to shoot holsters for a catalogue. So I am not starting from scratch, and I know a fair amount of computer stuff so the software to "fix" my mistakes will not be a mystery to me either. However after picking up a camera for this, I thought I would take a short cut to picking the equipment and ask. 20k worth of equipment is a bit much, though I am sure I have collected quite a bit in my other hobbies. I do know how to set up lighting, bracket my shots, set a flash, strobe etc.. I also understand it will be a bit of trial and error till I figure out what I did wrong. I read the camera manual, and found the correct lighting temp to get color correct photos, but am not sure that is what I want. Sorry, kind of rambling. Just wanted you to know, that yes I will be taking time to learn and understand this stuff, but didn't want to take forever to pick out the equipment. The kids are only this age once, and the wife is getting anxious about getting stuff set up. |
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Ok. Fair enough. If you want to go with Alien Bees for lights, thats fine. They do seem to make some good lights. There are others as well, but if you are budget conscious I'd probably stick with the bees. What I would NOT do is mix and match lights from different manufacturers. Each manufacturer had different color temps for their lights. Personally, I think in the Bees lineup, at AB800 is probably the best bet for you key/fill lights. They will give you the most versatility. Stay away from their lightstands, though. Just buy the impact air cushioned light stand from B&H for $40. Much heavier build, and cheaper. You can do portraits with just one light, but it is not as easy as if you had two. Taking "good" pictures of more than one person with just a single key takes a lot of understanding on how best to use your light. You can do portraits with umbrellas, but I find them more limiting than softboxes. Reflectors/reflector panes are always good things to have. Backdrops can range in the ultra cheap bedsheet from Walmart, bare wall, seemless paper, canvas, and muslin. Basically, for just a couple lights, which is what I would recommend for just starting out, you are probably going to exceed the $400. You are probably going spend at least $800. Basic kit: (2) AB 800 lights with 7" reflectors (2) Impact light stands (2) Shoot through Umbrellas with umbrella holders / or (2) softboxes (3'x4' or larger) (1) background (1) background support system (homemade or the &100 impact kit from B&H) (1) light meter (1) reflector panel Some may say the light meter isn't necessary with digital, and the LCD on the camera. If you want to learn how to set ratios, then you need to learn how to use a lightmeter. |
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I started with Alien Bees and they've done well for me. I'd recommend the basic AB 800 to start with. Two is good, but one will get you started. Either a shoot through diffuser umbrella or their large soft box is a good starter item too. (look diligently for sales and you can upgrade to a bigger, better softbox later, and the 800 is enough to drive it for most small room purposes) Get your light stands from B&H. I'm a fan of the Impact air-cushioned stands. I have a few of the small ones because they pack in luggage nicely, but the bigger ones are nice and sturdy. They also take a wheel kit. As for backgrounds, if you have the space, the seamless paper from your local photo supply store (or wolf/ritz in some places) is a great answer. Another answer is to buy raw or bleached muslin from joann.com. You can leave the bleached as-is for white, or dye either to the colors you want. Paint can be added to make them look pro. |
Another Bees fan. I've also got grids and barndoors to help control the light if desired. Joe_Blacke's list looks pretty good. I doubt the XTi has a sync port so you'll also need a hotshoe adapter. Or go wireless and pick up some PocketWizards.  fwiw I found the muslin at JoAnn's to be too thin. I prefer something heavier. I've been happy with my Amvona backgrounds. Seamless paper is cheap, too. |
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Thanks for the recommendations. Yeah, that was a disappointment. Even my old t80 had a sync port. You think they would have kept that feature. So a few more questions. Basically, I can buy this a little at a time, but as I recall, and maybe I am wrong, but is there something about burn time for the lights? That is if I buy one light now, and one a year from now, aren't the colors going to be off? Just checking to see if it is better to buy them both at once I guess. Also, are all the lights flash? I keep looking at it, and it is a bit confusing. They seem like constant on only, or am I reading that wrong? |
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You don't want continuous lights. If you are searching the B&H and other photo websites, stay away from any of the continuous/tungston kits. As for A&B, those are strobes, meaning flash. They have a modeling light, which is a constant light that helps you "see" how the light from your strobe is going to light your subject. The modeling light turns off when the flash fires, though. For A&B, the modeling light is pretty dim. I think there are replacement options for the modeling bulb to make it brighter, though. All flash tube do have a color shift over time. However, most flash unit have the same type of color shift as you vary the power of the unit. That is one reason to use a white balance reference at the start of each session. It allows you to adjust the color of your lights in post processing. |
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Hot Lights are cheap. They also heat a room and make a model sweat and squint. If you get the ABs there is a trick to make the modelling lamps brighter to better estimate the shadoes and balance. If your ABs are all the same rating, you can put 150w Phillips Halogena bulbs in. (the similar shaped GE product works too) If you have strobes one ranking off, you can put 75w Halogenas in the 400s and 150w Halogenas in the 800s. Oh, yeah... triggers. People will say they suck or that they're not Pocket Wizards, but I found some cheap wireless triggers on ebay that have worked well for me for quite a while. They are not perfect -- but for about $50 a set, they are fine for me. (the inline AC powered ones work better than the AA powered ones) |
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two or three years ago -- sorry - the auctions are long expired Search for "radio trigger" on ebay. Physically, this one looks a lot like mine. No clue if it really is or not. |
 We had several vendors that we could buy these from bu they were all recalled because of fire hazards. Double check the "UL" stickee or "FCC" stickee if they have one...most likely they are counterfeit stickees. Not trying to hijack just trying to steer you away from a potential problem. There are some ebay radio slaves out there that run from $25 to $50 that work but they will use an odd "N" type battery...they come w/ the battery but when they die they can be a little out of the way to find one on the shelf. 7mm |
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fwiw AlienBees is selling inexpensive triggers so I'd probably opt for them instead of the eBay ones. Of course, this is if I didn't already have PocketWizards.
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Good to know about those triggers. So are any of these kits from B&H worth the time? It seems like I get a bit more from these than the alien bees www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=product&A=continueShopping&Q= |
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Your link broke. There are quite a few good monolight kits out there, but they will probably cost more than the Bees. Usually, though, they provide more features, such as higher WS, better modeling lights, better recycle times, integrated wireless remotes/receivers, etc. |
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Andrew: You link is for strobe pack and head kits. Are you sure this is what you want, instead of monolights? Monolights contain the flash head and all the electronics in a single package. Each light plugs directly into an outlet and you independently set the power on each light. This is what the A&B units are. Pack and head systems are different. They have smaller sized flash "heads" which plug into a central pack system. This pack system is then plugged into an outlet. The light output for each head has to be regulated from the pack itself. Here is a link for monolight kits: www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?shs=monolight+kits&ci=0&sb=ps&pn=1&sq=desc&InitialSearch=yes&O=productlist.jsp&A=search&Q=*&bhs=t |
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Thanks, I guess I am confused. They both seem to do the same job. Is there an advantage to one over the other? The prices seem about the same. Also, the link above for the wireless sync, does the reciever end have multiple sync ports? Or how does that work for the stand alone vs the one with the pack that powers all the lights? |
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Advantage is a matter of opinion. Pack/Head systems are the older method, but many pro's prefer this style as you can get more powerful lights in this configuration. Think of each head as nothing more than a lightbulb. The "Pack" is the actual brains. You configure the power going to each "lightbulb" by making the appropriate setting on the pack itself. The individual heads are lighter than monolights, because the electronics are segregated into two pieces. For monolights, the brains and lightbuld are contained in a single unit on each flash. That means to set the power of each flash requires you to go to that flash and set the appropriate power on the back of the unit. Rather than having 1 brain and a bunch of lightbulbs, you have multiple brains and lightbulbs all doing what you tell them to do. As for synching your lights, I'll try to explain the various options. If you use a pack/head system, you only need to have a way to communicate with the pack. This can be by synch cable, wireless (radio) transmitter/receiver or infrared. Because the pack is the brains, it receives the signal and then tells the lightbulbs what to do based on the settings you made at the pack itself. So, for this system, you can just run a synch cable. Or, you can install a hotshoe transmitter on your camera and install a receiver at the pack. Normally the reciever connects to the pack via a typical synch cable. The transmitter talks to the receiver, the receiver talks to the pack. Monolights are different, but similar. Because each one has it's own brains, each one needs to receive a signal to fire. You can run a synch cord to one of your lights, and set the rest of your lights to fire when they "see" the synched light go off. This is called slaving. You can run a synch cable to a control box, and then run a synch cable from the control box to each light. This kind of mimics the pack/head system, but only for giving the command to fire as you still have to set the power on the back of each light seperately. You could install a wireless transmitter onto the hotshoe of your camera, and install a single receiver on one of the lights and again trigger the rest of the lights via the slave mode. Or else, you could use the same wireless transmitter on your camera, and install a wireless receiver at each light. If you want to see some of this explained as a video, you can go to youtube, and search for snapfactory. He has a bunch of lighting tutorials. |
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Thanks for the explination. Basically they are the same, just what do I want to do to set up the lights. I guess I can get more powerful lights with the pack setup as well for the same price? I will look up the vids. Generally more is better, but that is not always the case with lighting. Is there any advantage to having 600 w/s vs 400 w/s flashes other than distance covered by the flash? |
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Bigger is not always better. Remember that that a correct exposure is a combination of ISO, shutter, and aperature. Normally, for studio work, you set your camera for the lowest ISO on your camera. You also want your camera at the fastest synch speed (1/125, 1/200 1/250 for many canon cameras). That leaves you only with aperature to change if you need to vary your exposure if you buy very powerful flahes. Most portraiture doesnt look very good if you need to stop down to f/22. You want to stay between F/5.0 and F/11.0 for most portraits. You can screw yourself with buying too much power, as well as if you buy a system with not enough. Consider your space that you will use this equipment. If it is fairly confined, 1000WS lights is overkill. If it is fairly large, 200WS lights may be limiting. If you buy overly powerful lights, the only way you have too much power, and you will either have to stop down your aperature, put density filters on your flash/lens, or find a way to get more seperation distance between the lights and the subject (this is the worst of conditions and you loose the creativity over your background my manipulating flash to subject distance, versus flash to background distance). The picture above was taken with 4 500WS lights through softboxes. The background light was dialed down as low as possible. The hair light was dialed down pretty low. The key light was at about 1/2 power, and about 5 feet from the subject which allowed for some spill to hit the background and more even illumination of the subject. The fill light was at about 7/8 power because I kept it far away from the subject so that light falloff from the subject to background was minimized. This is even though it was set one stop below key, which allowed for a 3:1 ratio. Camera settings were F/8, 1/200, ISO 100. I'd recommend you get something that is close to 500WS for your lights, if you are doing indoor portraits (make sure this is the real WS rating, and not "effective" WS rating). If your lights are not powerful enough, you can still increase your ISO up to 4 stops, without affecting your noise (typically). Alternatively, you can open your aperature a bit. |
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Joe_Blacke- Thanks for the explination. Thanks for taking the time. That is way different then what I am used to. Generally I set the f-stop based on how deep I want the picture to go, and let the shutter speed take care of exposure based on lighting. I guess knowing your lighting allows you to control things differently. I have been reading, and I see now that people expect the background to be blured in a portrat, but all the ones "Professonally" done seem to have sharp backgrounds. Ineptitude? Or just these point and shoot places are not real photographers and just do what the camera says? As for the kits, I think I will base it on overall weight. makes it easier to lug around if all other things seem to be equal about the lights. I have used soft boxes before, is there any difference between those and the shoot through umbrellas? I know I have burned a few before too. But that was with constant lighting. Do I have to worry about that with flash heads? |
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Creativity, and knowing light is what seperates the good photographers from everyone else. There is no hard and fast rule that portraits have to be shallow depth of field, or vice versa. However, in "studio" type portraiture, your background probably makes the determiniation for you. If you are using a scenic background, you may want to show it. If you are using an abstract pattern, you probably want it blurred. If you are using seemless paper, it doesn't matter if you blur the background or not as the result will be the same, provided the subject is in focus with both types. The problem comes into play if your want to be creative. Do you want an extremely shallow DOF so that the close eye is in focus, and the far eye is blurred? To do that you need a large aperature. With a large aperature, you are going to let in more light, and you need some way to compensate. Can you turn your ISO down? Probably not. Shutter speed can't be increased beyond the max synch speed (strobes don't give you the ability to use FP modes like flash). The only option is the somehow reduce the light hitting the subject, and that means moving the lights back, or reducing their output. Yes, there are differences between softboxes, and shoot through umbrellas. Being a bit biased here, I'll tell you softboxes are better. Softboxes allow you to control the direction of the light. Based on their shape, they funnel the light, which allows you to feather it towards or away from your background, which allows you to control how well the background tones/images render. Umbrellas, even shoot through umbrellas, are multi-directional. Light goes everywhere. It's just like a lightbulb. You get light going forward, to the sides, up and down, as well as being bounced back from the umbrella itself. To control the direction of the light, you need to flag/gobo. You may still have some unwanted light spilling into the lens, depending on where the lights were placed, and if you can't flag off all the light, you might get some light bounced back into your scene, which affects your exposure and creativity. Buy a softbox/umbrella designed for stobes, and you shouldn't have to worry about burning them up. The only real heat is from the modeling lights, which are usually less than 300 watts. |
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based on what you have said, this seems like my best choice for kits anyway. www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/386791-REG/Interfit_Paterson_INT138_Stellar_600_2_Monolight.html Any draw backs. I know I still need a background holder and cloth or paper of some sort. |
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I don't have any experience with the Interfit system. The specs on the kit look pretty good. I like the 250 watt modeling light, and hopefully it allows for variable output to match the actual strobe output for a 'seeing what you get' light pattern. Not thrilled with the lightstands though. 7.5' isn't very high. The Impact air cushioned light stands are only $40 apiece, and I'd pick up 2 of those. Just from the website, it looks like a very decent beginners kit. |
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If you are interested. I did pick up that starter pack from B&H. Got the stand alone heads because of weight difference. 54 pounds vs 14. It all fits in a single case. 2 stands, 2 lights and 2 soft boxes. I ordered a backdrop from silver line, but it hasn't come in yet. |