Scott, Will you be shooting digital or film, or both?
What is your budget? For digital some of the new continuous lights that use fluorescent tubes are great. Good light quality like hot lights but almost no heat. And WYSIWYG, unlike studio flash. If you want flash, you can't go wrong with AlienBees. Made to very high standards. Fan cooled. Modeling lights and replacement flash tubes readily available if you ever need them. Wide range of light modifiers available from them and other companies. My studio was set up as a teaching studio and I have three shooting areas that are set up with lights all the time. I have three AlienBees in one set, and have been running them heavily since they first came on the market in 2003. I've yet to need to replace a flash tube or modeling light. I have Multiblitz monolights (3) on another set, and Visatek (from Broncolor) on the third set. Both produce excellent light quality, but modeling lights are harder to get and more expensive, and light modifiers from the companies are expensive. I also have a bunch of White Lightning units of various vintages that I use when I need more lights for a particular project, and some JTL equipment. I've tested just about every brand of studio flash at one time or another for my magazine articles/books, and really do think that AlienBees is the best value per dollar currently available. Bob On Apr 19, 2007, at 12:19 AM, Scott Loveless wrote: > Howdy, gang! The wife and I have been talking about doing a little > studio portraiture and were wondering if we could solicit a few > opinions > from the sanitari......PDML. > > We need to be able to set it up and take it down quickly. We also > need > to be able to store it as compactly as possible. Our initial thoughts > were to start simple - a 53" roll of white seamless, stands for the > roll, and a couple lights with either umbrellas or soft boxes. A > single > light and a reflector may suit our needs, too. I'd rather not deal > with > the heat from tungsten lights, so it's either fluorescent continuous > lighting or monoblocks. Current plans are to photograph the kids a > lot, > guests when they'll allow it, and a few "models" for some projects I'm > considering. One or two people in the frame should be typical. > > As far as environment goes, we have 9 foot ceilings and enough > space to > move the camera up to about 20 feet from the sitter. Our house is > almost a shotgun style, so width of the backdrop is an issue. > Anything > wider than 6' would be problematic unless I moved a lot of furniture > around. Windows face northeast and northwest > > Anyone care to offer an opinion about brands, continuous vs. strobe, > watt seconds, etc? > > Thanks! > > -- > Scott Loveless > www.twosixteen.com > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
