what lighting equipment do you use the most?

babygodzilla

while reading Hot Shoe Diaries I am always lost in a sea of umbrellas, barndoors, trigrips, big bounce, this bounce, that bounce, etc @_@

it seems like Joe has every available equipment in existence, and its really confusing.

My question is, what lighting equipment do you use the most? if I wanna buy my first lighting equipment, what should it be?

Thanks

Scott_Quier

Since I'm such a very nice guy I'm not going to tell you, "Google is your friend" and leave it at that - though, google is indeed your friend in matters such as this.

Here are two links I found on the first two pages of this sub-forum that will provide you at least a partial answer to your questions.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=158584
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=159367

Qarik

start out with a large umbrella (with a light stand and hot shoe adaptor) and a reflector. This can get you pretty far.

Art Scott

Something to remember and is not really well known unless one has been formally educated in commerical photography is: Commerical Photographers like Joe McNally do not pay for a lot of their equipment......Whoa!!! Your thinking.....but they don't.....what they do is take a job and in their contract they list the incidentals that are needed for a job.....special bouncers, speedlights...yadda yadda yaddda and charge the client for it......the contract will also stipulate that if the clients wants said incidentals then they get to keep them...if not the photog will keep them to reuse for the same client in the future.........so your equipment grows and you have files on all of your clients that state what was used when......and the list of toys can grow very large and almost for free......................

To help answer your questions

What equipment.................????? Depends on if you want to do........ all location shooting or studio mixed with location.......................??????

You can see what can be done with good quality HotShoe flashes in the HS Diaries.......and the ampount of FREEDOM you get also with them.....so again I have to refer you to my statement of Depends on what you want to do.........................

In addition to the flash units you will need an Incident flash/ambient lightmeter to make life much easier on you........


EDit to answer the thread title question......
To answer the question in your thread Title............I have both a studio set up with 5 White Lightning Studio flashes, 5 stands and 4 umbreallas and 4 reflectors......for location shooting I have 2 SB900's, 2 sunpak 622's / with Quantum Battery 1's, Sekonic L558 incident/ reflective / ambient/ flash meter, 3 RF transmitters and 7 RF flash triggers, 1 Wireless RF Transmitter and reciever camera trigger........................................................and a slew of rechargable AA & AAA batteries and 3 chargers....plus 3 chargers and 4 bateries for my Nikons and 12 batteries / 4 chargers for my Konica Minolta cameras

angevin1

SB series of flashguns: SB600, SB800, SB900...etc.

My first light was a Shop light from the Hardware store.

If you mean flash modifiers...it changes almost every time I shoot...
One of the coolest things I have is a 4x12 sheet of duct-board insulation from LOWES home improvement warehouse ($12). It is gray plastic on one side and Aluminum foil on the other. Cut in half and voila, two 4x4 sheets, which work really well laying up against a lightstand for reflecting light.

Where light comes from certainly plays a role, but where you put it, bounce it or reflect it is a bigger deal~And you can modify light a whole bunch cheaper than you can create it. lot of home made modifiers work just fine.

I would think the type of lights you want and the type of modifiers you want are wholly dependent on Where you want to use them, money aside.

babygodzilla

Art Scott wrote:

Something to remember and is not really well known unless one has been formally educated in commerical photography is: Commerical Photographers like Joe McNally do not pay for a lot of their equipment......Whoa!!! Your thinking.....but they don't.....what they do is take a job and in their contract they list the incidentals that are needed for a job.....special bouncers, speedlights...yadda yadda yaddda and charge the client for it......the contract will also stipulate that if the clients wants said incidentals then they get to keep them...if not the photog will keep them to reuse for the same client in the future.........so your equipment grows and you have files on all of your clients that state what was used when......and the list of toys can grow very large and almost for free......................

To help answer your questions

What equipment.................????? Depends on if you want to do........ all location shooting or studio mixed with location.......................??????

You can see what can be done with good quality HotShoe flashes in the HS Diaries.......and the ampount of FREEDOM you get also with them.....so again I have to refer you to my statement of Depends on what you want to do.........................

In addition to the flash units you will need an Incident flash/ambient lightmeter to make life much easier on you........


EDit to answer the thread title question......
To answer the question in your thread Title............I have both a studio set up with 5 White Lightning Studio flashes, 5 stands and 4 umbreallas and 4 reflectors......for location shooting I have 2 SB900's, 2 sunpak 622's / with Quantum Battery 1's, Sekonic L558 incident/ reflective / ambient/ flash meter, 3 RF transmitters and 7 RF flash triggers, 1 Wireless RF Transmitter and reciever camera trigger........................................................and a slew of rechargable AA & AAA batteries and 3 chargers....plus 3 chargers and 4 bateries for my Nikons and 12 batteries / 4 chargers for my Konica Minolta cameras

Very informative post as always Thank you Art.

babygodzilla

angevin1 wrote:

SB series of flashguns: SB600, SB800, SB900...etc.

My first light was a Shop light from the Hardware store.

If you mean flash modifiers...it changes almost every time I shoot...
One of the coolest things I have is a 4x12 sheet of duct-board insulation from LOWES home improvement warehouse ($12). It is gray plastic on one side and Aluminum foil on the other. Cut in half and voila, two 4x4 sheets, which work really well laying up against a lightstand for reflecting light.

That's very cool thanks a lot

rpcrowe

I use studio flash
I use studio flash because I firmly believe that even the cheapest "real" studio flash is superior to the most expensive hotshoe flash for studio use.

I can cite any number of advantages of the true studio strobe over the jury-rigged hotshoe flash for studio use but, the most important factor is the modeling light. Shooting with even the best hotshoe flash, equipped with the most expensive and supposedly sophisticated accessories - you are still shooting blind.

To borrow a computer phrase; using studio strobes with modeling lights give you WYSIWYG lighting. For the computer challenged; WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is What You Get".

Ekaj

rpcrowe wrote:

I use studio flash because I firmly believe that even the cheapest "real" studio flash is superior to the most expensive hotshoe flash for studio use.

I can cite any number of advantages of the true studio strobe over the jury-rigged hotshoe flash for studio use but, the most important factor is the modeling light. Shooting with even the best hotshoe flash, equipped with the most expensive and supposedly sophisticated accessories - you are still shooting blind.

To borrow a computer phrase; using studio strobes with modeling lights give you WYSIWYG lighting. For the computer challenged; WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is What You Get".

To counterpoint, lugging around studio lights, batteries, or a generator is virtually impossible unless you figure in a crew of assistants to each of your shoots.

While it may be easier to learn on, if you ever want to shoot outside of a studio you will find the above poster's suggestion worthless.

I have no reservations suggesting speedlights.

DeuceFour

I personally believe that either way you go can be portable. You dont need a generator, ect. I have Alien Bee's and when shooting on location I use [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]The Vagabond II Portable Power System http://www.alienbees.com/VIIsystem.html[/FONT]

And I know of a lot of other shooters who do the same thing. You can connect all your studio flash heads up to that thing and your good. The only difference is your gonna have to transport your studio heads, vice small speedlights. But either way you still have to transport all the other stuff. Light Stands, Grip, Light Modifiers, ect.. And one good pelican case can hold most everything! Its all personal preference!

JohnBiggs

I stopped lugging my alienbees and I now just use speedlights and portable stands. I also like the small size of the speedlight modifiers.

http://www.honeycombgrids.com/

^^^ That is a great source for inexpensive modifiers.