Should I use a strobes or hot lights

Matt Baker said:

I'm trying to learn the basics of lighting and have a basic question.
I'm looking at two kits, one is with two hot lights and two
umbrellas, the other is a basic strobe kit with two strobes.
The hot light kit is significantly cheaper and I'm on a limited
budget. Which would be better to learn the basics of lighting.

Click to expand...

Paul Ferrara said:

Paul
http://www.paulsportraits.com

Matt Baker said:

I'm trying to learn the basics of lighting and have a basic question.
I'm looking at two kits, one is with two hot lights and two
umbrellas, the other is a basic strobe kit with two strobes.
The hot light kit is significantly cheaper and I'm on a limited
budget. Which would be better to learn the basics of lighting.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Matt Baker said:

I'm trying to learn the basics of lighting and have a basic question.
I'm looking at two kits, one is with two hot lights and two
umbrellas, the other is a basic strobe kit with two strobes.
The hot light kit is significantly cheaper and I'm on a limited
budget. Which would be better to learn the basics of lighting.

Click to expand...

padeye said:

Getting started on a budget is tough. Try to look at things long
term. It's penny wise and pound foolish to get things you have to
replace later on. Long term I think you're better off with strobes
but if your budget is really slim you can do a hybrid approach. If
you get high quality light stands and umbrellas you could start
with hot lights then replace them with monolights when your budget
allows.

Get quality equipment. Some kits come with cheap stamped steel
stands. I've always preferred Bogen stands. The lightweight start
at about $40. Ilike the 8' 3086 stands which are about $45.

You will prefer monolights, especially after you bake a portrait
subject or melt a still life under hot lights. Hot lights are
probably easier to learn with as it's a strictly WYSIWYG setup and
you can use your camera's meter effectively. Strobes are mostly
WYSIWYG with modeling lights but you will need to get a flash meter
to use them well. Visualizing strobes can be a bit tricky as you
have to mentally subtract ambient room light but it can actually be
an advantage as it gives more control.

WYSIWYG = what you see is what you get.

Click to expand...

padeye said:

Getting started on a budget is tough. Try to look at things long
term. It's penny wise and pound foolish to get things you have to
replace later on. Long term I think you're better off with strobes
but if your budget is really slim you can do a hybrid approach. If
you get high quality light stands and umbrellas you could start
with hot lights then replace them with monolights when your budget
allows.

Get quality equipment. Some kits come with cheap stamped steel
stands. I've always preferred Bogen stands. The lightweight start
at about $40. Ilike the 8' 3086 stands which are about $45.

You will prefer monolights, especially after you bake a portrait
subject or melt a still life under hot lights. Hot lights are
probably easier to learn with as it's a strictly WYSIWYG setup and
you can use your camera's meter effectively. Strobes are mostly
WYSIWYG with modeling lights but you will need to get a flash meter
to use them well. Visualizing strobes can be a bit tricky as you
have to mentally subtract ambient room light but it can actually be
an advantage as it gives more control.

Click to expand...

Matt Baker said:

I'm trying to learn the basics of lighting and have a basic question.
I'm looking at two kits, one is with two hot lights and two
umbrellas, the other is a basic strobe kit with two strobes.
The hot light kit is significantly cheaper and I'm on a limited
budget. Which would be better to learn the basics of lighting.

Click to expand...

Matt Baker said:

Thanks for all the input!

I've been agonizing over this decision for a while. I think I'm
leaning towards the hot light kit for a couple of reasons. I like
the idea of being able to see exatly what the light is doing before
I take the picture and I don't want to get in over my head to soon.
At this point, I don't think I'd know a light meter if it hit me
over the head .

If I buy the hot light kit, I want to make sure that it won't be
totaly wasted when I do move on to strobes. How do I know if the
kit is of good quality? I'm currently looking at an InterFit kit.

Matt

Click to expand...

Matt Baker said:

Thanks for all the input!

I've been agonizing over this decision for a while. I think I'm
leaning towards the hot light kit for a couple of reasons. I like
the idea of being able to see exatly what the light is doing before
I take the picture and I don't want to get in over my head to soon.
At this point, I don't think I'd know a light meter if it hit me
over the head .

If I buy the hot light kit, I want to make sure that it won't be
totaly wasted when I do move on to strobes. How do I know if the
kit is of good quality? I'm currently looking at an InterFit kit.

Matt

Click to expand...

padeye said:

You're better off sticking with hot lights with that camera.
Generally you have to adjust the aperture to the lights but that's
not possible. Some monolights like Alien Bees have a very wide
range of adjustment so it's not impossible to use moolights with a
point and shoot camera but it's very difficult.

The effect of model movement depends on the distance to the lights.
The further away the lights are the less a bit of movement of the
model matters. Sometimes you need to have the light source like an
umbrella or softbox up close to soften shadows or accentuate
falloff. In this cases a little movement toward or away from the
light makes a bigger difference in illumination. Learn the inverse
square rule and this will make perfect sense.

There are a lot of misconceptions about strobes. The harshness of
light and shadows has only to do with the reflectors used. If I
take a shot with a bare bulb strobe and a bare tungsten bulb at
similar distances and exposures I'll get similar harsh shadows.
Shoot both lights into an umbrella and you'll get similar effects.

All studio monolights have modeling lights that try to mimic the
light pattern of the strobe. For the most part it's a tungsten
bulb in the middle of a ring shaped flash tube. With better lights
the modeling light is proportional to the flash power. Turn the
flash down one stop and the voltage to the modeling light is cut a
similar amount dimming it.

One reason that you may get harsher shadows with strobes is because
you don't take into account ambient light. With hot lights all the
ambient light that your eyes can see will contribute to the
exposure. This helps fill in some of the shadows. With strobes if
you have set a reasonably high shutter speed the ambient room light
will have little or no effect on the exposure. As far as the
camera is concerned you are in a dark room and only the strobe
flash contributes to the exposure. If you aren't aware of this
you'll wonder why the exposure doesn't look the same as the scene
did to your eye. The way around this is to make sure there is no
other light source than the modeling lights to fool your eye.

Click to expand...

Ashok Rai said:

Ashok

Matt Baker said:

Thanks for all the input!

I've been agonizing over this decision for a while. I think I'm
leaning towards the hot light kit for a couple of reasons. I like
the idea of being able to see exatly what the light is doing before
I take the picture and I don't want to get in over my head to soon.
At this point, I don't think I'd know a light meter if it hit me
over the head .

If I buy the hot light kit, I want to make sure that it won't be
totaly wasted when I do move on to strobes. How do I know if the
kit is of good quality? I'm currently looking at an InterFit kit.

Matt

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

pnoeric said:

just want to add, thanks for tip; like Matt, after considering the
options I'm opting for hot lights as well... I'm off to look at the
Starlite kit too.

I haev one dumb question about strobes with modeling lights-- do
you leave the modeling lights on all the time, and when the strobe
triggers, it turns off the modeling light for that moment? That
seems to make the most sense ..?

best
Eric

Click to expand...

padeye said:

As far as the exposure goes the modeling lights turning off should
have little or no effect on exposure. Yes, the exposure will be a
mix of strobe and modeling light but the ratio is usually so wide
that the modeling light makes no impact. The higher the shutter
speed the less exposure you get from the hot portion of the
monolight. That's an advantage of some digicams, you can take
flash at 1/1000 or highe. In effect you're in a dark room with
only flash illumination. Most medium format and large format can
do that up to 1/500 while SLRs may have to shoot as slow as 1/60.

Click to expand...

pnoeric said:

I can understand how, since the flash is so bright, the hot part of
the light (which isn't all that bright) doesn't make a big
difference... but how does a higer shutter speed effectively
"subtract" the hot light? Since light travels so fast, I'd think
that no matter how quickly a shutter can open and close, there's
still more than enough time for ANY light in the room to get in
there ...no?

Eric

Click to expand...

padeye said:

You're better off sticking with hot lights with that camera.
Generally you have to adjust the aperture to the lights but that's
not possible. Some monolights like Alien Bees have a very wide
range of adjustment so it's not impossible to use moolights with a
point and shoot camera but it's very difficult.

The effect of model movement depends on the distance to the lights.
The further away the lights are the less a bit of movement of the
model matters. Sometimes you need to have the light source like an
umbrella or softbox up close to soften shadows or accentuate
falloff. In this cases a little movement toward or away from the
light makes a bigger difference in illumination. Learn the inverse
square rule and this will make perfect sense.

There are a lot of misconceptions about strobes. The harshness of
light and shadows has only to do with the reflectors used. If I
take a shot with a bare bulb strobe and a bare tungsten bulb at
similar distances and exposures I'll get similar harsh shadows.
Shoot both lights into an umbrella and you'll get similar effects.

All studio monolights have modeling lights that try to mimic the
light pattern of the strobe. For the most part it's a tungsten
bulb in the middle of a ring shaped flash tube. With better lights
the modeling light is proportional to the flash power. Turn the
flash down one stop and the voltage to the modeling light is cut a
similar amount dimming it.

One reason that you may get harsher shadows with strobes is because
you don't take into account ambient light. With hot lights all the
ambient light that your eyes can see will contribute to the
exposure. This helps fill in some of the shadows. With strobes if
you have set a reasonably high shutter speed the ambient room light
will have little or no effect on the exposure. As far as the
camera is concerned you are in a dark room and only the strobe
flash contributes to the exposure. If you aren't aware of this
you'll wonder why the exposure doesn't look the same as the scene
did to your eye. The way around this is to make sure there is no
other light source than the modeling lights to fool your eye.

Click to expand...

padeye said:

The term watt-seconds seems confusing but really isn't. One watt
of power for one second duration is one joule of energy. Let's
take say, 300 joules of power and charge come capacitors with it
then dicharge that through a Xenon flash tube. You get a very
bright burst of light that may last only 1/6000 of a second. You
could take that same 300 joules of energy and put it through a 600
watt bulb. You'd have enough energy for a half second worth of
light. We'll ignore differences in efficiency to keep it simple.
In both cases the same amount of energy is turned into photos to
tickle the CCD in your camera.

pnoeric said:

I can understand how, since the flash is so bright, the hot part of
the light (which isn't all that bright) doesn't make a big
difference... but how does a higer shutter speed effectively
"subtract" the hot light? Since light travels so fast, I'd think
that no matter how quickly a shutter can open and close, there's
still more than enough time for ANY light in the room to get in
there ...no?

Eric

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Paul Ferrara said:

You'd be better off with one strobe and a 60" umbrella. Look at
the Alienbees B400 to get started. You can always add more lights
later and preserve your investment.

Click to expand...