Anybody interested in studio lighting?

[flamin lib]

http://www.cowboystudio.com/
This looks like a good source for inexpensive continuous light (non flash) kits. Umbrella lighting is very soft, forgiving and high output CFLs reproduce colors to 80% of sunlight which is certainly close enough for most applications.

Two lights are minimum for portraiture but one with a reflector can suffice for table top work.

There's also a three light kit with background on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001G4BNZA/ref=sc_pgp__m_A3M1HP6HNLCTKA_12?ie=UTF8&m=A3M1HP6HNLCTKA&n=&s=&v=glance Part numbers don't match anything on the company page. Two complaints were flimsy stands and light output but 105 watt bulbs would double the kit output. Read the reviews and draw your own conclusions.

[Major Nikon]

1. I've bought some Cowboystudio stuff before

Most of their stuff is definitely consumer grade, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I bought a background stand from them because it was cheap, and because I rarely need to use it. If I was in the market for one I was going to use all the time, I'd look somewhere else.

You can do wonders with only one light, and many photographers do. In reality, if you have one light, you actually have two as the sun is always there. Other sources of ambient light work as well. However, having more than one light just expands your possibilities.

Traditionally, studio lighting falls into different categories depending on how they are used, such as ambient, key, fill, or accent lighting. Lighting a background often takes two or more lights, especially if you want to light it evenly. Umbrellas are OK to use for key and fill lighting as they are easy to use and produce decent results. Softboxes give you a lot more control and are preferred to umbrellas by most really good studio photographers under most situations.

The first thing you have to decide is if you want to go with strobes or hot lights. The kit you references uses hot lights. Hot lights are generally cheaper, but aren't really well suited for still photography. Most still photographers use strobes. If you choose strobes, you have a choice between stuido strobes or speedlights. I prefer to use speedlights because they are much more portable. Studio strobes give you a lot more power, and faster recycle times. They are nice if your studio always stays in one place, or you have a crew to move your junk around.

[flamin lib]

2. I've used all that equipment back when I had a studio at my

disposal. The OP was aimed at entry level photographers not familiar with studio or tabletop setups; often the first step to controlling and manipulating light instead of just taking what's in front of the lens. From time to time "still life" comes up here and pretty quickly goes away after a few attempts. Constant light sources allow the neophyte to see highlights and shadows. Studio flash with modeling lights is out of reach for most amateurs. $125 is less than a new lens or a dedicated ttl flash and within reach of anyone stretching their abilities. They're not that hot; 340 watt heat output for 1200 watt light equivalent.

I started out using kleigs, spots and scrims. Try shooting an ice cream ad with 5000 watts of tungsten! Novatron was the choice for location flash and I can't remember the studio flash brand--been too long. Typical portrait setup was a Main with barn doors, Fill, Background and at least one kicker with a snoot. Move the Main a foot and blow the light pattern, same with the kicker. Umbrellas became popular because they are so forgiving even if too flat to get classic light patterns. Softboxes are a more controllable and directional, therefore more defining, light but still forgiving.

Being someone who tends to "make" pictures instead of "taking" them I prefer to shoot with available light, i.e. everything available to me; whatever I can lay hands on. Becoming lazy in my old age I've constructed a couple of light boxes using IR TTL flashes--just do table top these days so it's all I need.

[Major Nikon]

3. I call constant light sources "hot lights"

Not because they are particularly "hot" temperature wise but because they are hot all the time as opposed to a strobe which isn't.

I thought you were just speaking of studio lights in general, and for that I tend to try to steer beginners away from hot lights because of their limitations. As far as still photography goes, hot lights might work better for tabletop work for a beginner, but I don't see an advantage to very many other situations. Anyone who wants to do something different is probably going to find a cheap set of hot lights wanting.

Strobes present their own set of challenges, but they aren't too hard for a beginner to learn, and with digital photography that doesn't cost you a dime or so everytime you push the shutter, teaching yourself doesn't have to be an expensive proposition. Even if you don't have a flash meter (I have one, but don't use it anymore), with digital photography you can build a shot using one strobe at a time and reading the historgram on a test shot. There's plenty of studio strobes on the used market, so you can pick up a decent set for a reasonable price. You can also use non-TTL speedlights if your camera can be configured to trigger them, and even quite powerful models aren't all that expensive.

Personally I use IR TTL speedlights because I have little use for a fixed studio. I have to be able to set up my shot whereever I am, so I have several of them along with several portable light stands and a few modifiers. I use the available light all the time, but I see it as just another light source which I can either utilize or overpower.

[flamin lib]

4. Well, I guess it's a difference in philosophy.

It's very hard to learn something you can't see. Being able to move a continuous light source and see the difference in modeling is immensely more instructive than shoot, look at a 3" screen and re-shoot. Changing light ratios and actually seeing the way it changes the character of the subject is also easier with a continuous light source (though not so much with the overly soft umbrella). My experience with college freshmen in Photo 101 is that most of them are almost blind to light and its characteristics. They may recognize pleasing light when they see it but actually controlling it is often a struggle. It's the difference between taking pictures and making pictures. One can be very successful at the former and lost on the other. Annie Leibovitz remarked on her own journey from behind the scenes recording of celebrities and having to control a publicity shoot. Paraphrasing, "People began to expect me to tell them what to do and get results . . ."

Sure, re-shooting it until a pleasing image results works it's just not effective for many, if not most, casual photographers who want to improve their skills.

BTW, the inexpensive umbrellas at Cowboy are translucent and you can shoot through them and get results similar to a lightbox, it just sucks up a lot of light.

[Major Nikon]

5. I use umbrellas as shoot through more often than I use them for reflected light

Even with speedlights in the $300-500 range, I generally have to fire them at full power when using a shoot through umbrella even at close range, so I'm a bit skeptical of a cheap hot light's ability to do this. However, I've never tried it.

When I was a photography student, we used strobes exclusively and while lighting ratios may be a challenge to conceptualize, somehow I managed to learn to use them and it didn't take all that long. What the camera sees and what photography creates are two very different things. The human eye has a far greater dynamic range than what can be displayed on a computer monitor or even the very best photographic paper. I've never tried to teach photography students, so I don't have any direct experience with this, but it seem to me that trying to teach someone to set up light ratios with just their eyes is a recipe for detail loss through blown highlights and darks. At some level you have to be able to think of light in terms of stops which means you have to conceptualize something your eye can't see anyway.

[flamin lib]

6. This is beginning to sound like a Gungeon discussion. nt

[Sherman A1]

7. Thanks for posting

I am not interested at this time, but who knows what the future holds and doing things on the cheap is always a good thing when learning.

I will skip the back & forth discussion of technique.