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What to get with $1000

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Brad Shifflett

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If you had a $1000 to spend on lighting equipment, reflectors and etc.... What woudl you recommend. My camera does not have external flash capability, so I cannot control strobe lights with it, I would need some studio lighting that is always on. Looking at the Photoflex systems. Does Alien Bees have anything I could use? Thanks all!

Brad
c3020z
 
If you buy the right lights you could have them twenty years. You should consider upgrading your camera to one that supports full manual operation and has a hot shoe or PC connection.

Alienbees are strobes not hot lights (continuous).

Paul
http://www.paulsportraits.com
bshifflett said:
If you had a $1000 to spend on lighting equipment, reflectors and
etc.... What woudl you recommend. My camera does not have external
flash capability, so I cannot control strobe lights with it, I
would need some studio lighting that is always on. Looking at the
Photoflex systems. Does Alien Bees have anything I could use?
Thanks all!

Brad
c3020z
Click to expand...
 
I understand about upgrading my camera, that is something I do plan to do, just not yet. One thing I was reading is the Photoflex kits, you can change to a Strobe setup with the stands and stuff that come with it. So, If I started with continuous lighting and someday upgrade camera, then move to strobe lighting. But right now, I want to get into it at the base level. I do not want to upgrade my camera yet. I think what I got is good enough to learn on and can do some good quality shots, continuous lighting is my only option right now. So, with $1k, what would someone recommend. Think of it this way, Strobe is not an option, I understand my limitatiions. I am willing to live with that for a while, now with all that in mind, what would someone say to purchase? Cheap lighting kits and move up? Expensive kits and sell later on if no need anymore?

Brad S
http://www.photojockeys.com
Paul Ferrara said:
Alienbees are strobes not hot lights (continuous).

Paul
http://www.paulsportraits.com
bshifflett said:
If you had a $1000 to spend on lighting equipment, reflectors and
etc.... What woudl you recommend. My camera does not have external
flash capability, so I cannot control strobe lights with it, I
would need some studio lighting that is always on. Looking at the
Photoflex systems. Does Alien Bees have anything I could use?
Thanks all!

Brad
c3020z
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
 
I checked a review and the C-3020Z has manual control of apoerture in 1/3 EV steps and shutter speed. It doesn't appear to have provision for a standard X-sync but that can be solved with a digital compatible slave. The Digi-Slave SA-10 or the new Wein digital peanut slave will do the trick. You can use Alien Bees or othe strobes if you choose. You'll want to connect all the strobes to the digital slave so none get fooled by the digital pre-flash and trigger before the exposure.

My own kit has grown well over that $1,000 mark but I'd start with the Digibee kit; two B400s, two stands, two umbrellas and cases. That will get you off to a good start and provide some flexibility. Might consider getting a softbox too but no need to rush. A good light meter is also a long term investment. You could potentially squeeze all that and the digital slave into $1,000. You'll eventually want more, much more, but it's a good start.
 
Excuse my ignorance, does this unit mount over the flash unit on my camera or something? I am now looking at this, I will do some searching. I do not see any connectors on my camera where anything could plug into the flash, it has no Hot Shoe connection.

Brad
padeye said:
I checked a review and the C-3020Z has manual control of apoerture
in 1/3 EV steps and shutter speed. It doesn't appear to have
provision for a standard X-sync but that can be solved with a
digital compatible slave. The Digi-Slave SA-10 or the new Wein
digital peanut slave will do the trick. You can use Alien Bees or
othe strobes if you choose. You'll want to connect all the strobes
to the digital slave so none get fooled by the digital pre-flash
and trigger before the exposure.

My own kit has grown well over that $1,000 mark but I'd start with
the Digibee kit; two B400s, two stands, two umbrellas and cases.
That will get you off to a good start and provide some flexibility.
Might consider getting a softbox too but no need to rush. A good
light meter is also a long term investment. You could potentially
squeeze all that and the digital slave into $1,000. You'll
eventually want more, much more, but it's a good start.
Click to expand...
 
bshifflett said:
Excuse my ignorance, does this unit mount over the flash unit on my
camera or something? I am now looking at this, I will do some
searching. I do not see any connectors on my camera where anything
could plug into the flash, it has no Hot Shoe connection.

Brad

Brad,
Click to expand...
You use the built in flash on the fill flash setting(always on) and it will trigger the little "slave flash" which in turn fire the AB's at the same time. Really very simple set up.

Larry
 
Never mind, got all my questions answered. Just when I had my thoughts set on continuous lighting, This comes up, now I am off to look at Alien Bees!!! Man, this just got real confusing for me, but it sounds like a good idea. Thanks all!

Now, what Alien Bees to go with?
 
I often do portaiture with just two B400s. You don't need to go to extremely small working apertures with digicams to get depth of field as you might with a film camera so you can get by with less power than a film camera.
bshifflett said:
Never mind, got all my questions answered. Just when I had my
thoughts set on continuous lighting, This comes up, now I am off to
look at Alien Bees!!! Man, this just got real confusing for me, but
it sounds like a good idea. Thanks all!

Now, what Alien Bees to go with?
Click to expand...
 
Brad,

I'm in the same position you are, and I'll let you know what I've been learning. All this will do for you is probably generate more questions. In addition, if I'm incorrect with anything that I say, hopefully someone will jump in and set me strait.

I don't remember if you posted your camera type in a subsequent message or not, but with a lot of digital camera's (and maybe non digital) there's a pre-flash with the internal flash that is intended to reduce red-eye.

If you're using strobes without a synch-cable, ie... the camera flash is triggering the slave strobes, the pre-flash would probably trigger the strobes prematurely resulting in worthless pictures. Make sure to turn off the red-eye and just let the flash fire one time to trigger the strobes. Also, you may want to redirect the light from the camera's internal flash to the ceiling or the side of the people/person/object being photographed. The internal flash should be bright enough to trigger the strobes and still not affect the composition of your shot, unless you want it to...

If you are using a synch cable, then there's probably some adaptors you'll need to get. The cable connector on the lights are different that the cable to the camera. You might even need a bracket that simulates a hot shoe.

One of the options I'm looking at, in an effort to have a more versatile "toolbox", is to get a high powered speedlight (which is designed to mount on a hot shoe) as well as a couple of strobes. My thinking on this, is that I would then have the speedlight for those occasions and locations, where more flash is needed than what the internal flash can provide. But it could also be used as a fill light in the "studio". However, I believe a battery pack would be required with a speedlight.

My camera is the Nikon CP-4500 which doesn't have a hot shoe, so I'll need a bracket with the hotshoe, the synch cable from the camera to the hot shoe, , and if I'm cable synching the other strobes to fire, vs. triggering them off the speedlights flash, I'd also need a 3pin - 3pin cable from the hot shoe to the strobe.

Hopefully this helped in some small way. I've been struggling with lighting requirements for several weeks and I'm still in the process of learning. The big question for me is, how serious am I about taking my photography to the next level ? Depending on my goals, and if I look far enough into the future where I see a better camera, then there's no need to waste money on cheap lighting equipment now when I'll be wanting to upgrade a year later.

BTW... Quite a few of the local retailers that I've been visiting are carrying kits for the beginner from Interfit. I'm not sure how they stack up to the Bee's, but they can be set up for either synch or flash mode, are fully variable with power output, have both the flash and the modeling lamps, but it doesn't look like they're fan cooled like the Bee's are.

Comments welcome from the pro's :-)

Best regards,

David...
bshifflett said:
If you had a $1000 to spend on lighting equipment, reflectors and
etc.... What woudl you recommend. My camera does not have external
flash capability, so I cannot control strobe lights with it, I
would need some studio lighting that is always on. Looking at the
Photoflex systems. Does Alien Bees have anything I could use?
Thanks all!

Brad
c3020z
Click to expand...
 
Got one other question, I am looking at the Digi-Slave SA10, I talked to tech support guys and it looks like I just need to mount this on my camera with there adapter piece, the cord then goes to the Alien Bees and when my flash on the camera goes, it sends the signal to the alien bees and triggers them. Now I take it I need to get some sort of breakout cable to run to the other Alien Bee to trigger that one. How are people handling this? What type of cable are you getting to break out the connection?
padeye said:
bshifflett said:
Never mind, got all my questions answered. Just when I had my
thoughts set on continuous lighting, This comes up, now I am off to
look at Alien Bees!!! Man, this just got real confusing for me, but
it sounds like a good idea. Thanks all!

Now, what Alien Bees to go with?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks David for your input. I have the Olympus 3020z, it has no hot shoe adpater, so I am looking at the digi-slave SA10 to handle this triggering of the strobes. According to the tech support, no problem. I just need to figure out all the equipment I want to get, what to start with. I am guessing within the next week or 2 I should have it all.

Brad
DavidJ said:
I'm in the same position you are, and I'll let you know what I've
been learning. All this will do for you is probably generate more
questions. In addition, if I'm incorrect with anything that I say,
hopefully someone will jump in and set me strait.

I don't remember if you posted your camera type in a subsequent
message or not, but with a lot of digital camera's (and maybe non
digital) there's a pre-flash with the internal flash that is
intended to reduce red-eye.

If you're using strobes without a synch-cable, ie... the camera
flash is triggering the slave strobes, the pre-flash would probably
trigger the strobes prematurely resulting in worthless pictures.
Make sure to turn off the red-eye and just let the flash fire one
time to trigger the strobes. Also, you may want to redirect the
light from the camera's internal flash to the ceiling or the side
of the people/person/object being photographed. The internal flash
should be bright enough to trigger the strobes and still not affect
the composition of your shot, unless you want it to...

If you are using a synch cable, then there's probably some adaptors
you'll need to get. The cable connector on the lights are
different that the cable to the camera. You might even need a
bracket that simulates a hot shoe.

One of the options I'm looking at, in an effort to have a more
versatile "toolbox", is to get a high powered speedlight (which is
designed to mount on a hot shoe) as well as a couple of strobes.
My thinking on this, is that I would then have the speedlight for
those occasions and locations, where more flash is needed than what
the internal flash can provide. But it could also be used as a
fill light in the "studio". However, I believe a battery pack
would be required with a speedlight.

My camera is the Nikon CP-4500 which doesn't have a hot shoe, so
I'll need a bracket with the hotshoe, the synch cable from the
camera to the hot shoe, , and if I'm cable synching the other
strobes to fire, vs. triggering them off the speedlights flash, I'd
also need a 3pin - 3pin cable from the hot shoe to the strobe.

Hopefully this helped in some small way. I've been struggling with
lighting requirements for several weeks and I'm still in the
process of learning. The big question for me is, how serious am I
about taking my photography to the next level ? Depending on my
goals, and if I look far enough into the future where I see a
better camera, then there's no need to waste money on cheap
lighting equipment now when I'll be wanting to upgrade a year later.

BTW... Quite a few of the local retailers that I've been visiting
are carrying kits for the beginner from Interfit. I'm not sure how
they stack up to the Bee's, but they can be set up for either synch
or flash mode, are fully variable with power output, have both the
flash and the modeling lamps, but it doesn't look like they're fan
cooled like the Bee's are.

Comments welcome from the pro's :-)

Best regards,

David...
bshifflett said:
If you had a $1000 to spend on lighting equipment, reflectors and
etc.... What woudl you recommend. My camera does not have external
flash capability, so I cannot control strobe lights with it, I
would need some studio lighting that is always on. Looking at the
Photoflex systems. Does Alien Bees have anything I could use?
Thanks all!

Brad
c3020z
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Alien Bees have mini-plug jacks for the sync connection. You should be abelt to rig up something with parts from Radio Shack. Something to consider is the remote control. I'll be adding one to my setup soon as I've already found it a pain to keep running around adjusting each light at its location. This will be more diffcult when add a boom for overhead lighting.
bshifflett said:
padeye said:
bshifflett said:
Never mind, got all my questions answered. Just when I had my
thoughts set on continuous lighting, This comes up, now I am off to
look at Alien Bees!!! Man, this just got real confusing for me, but
it sounds like a good idea. Thanks all!

Now, what Alien Bees to go with?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
You may have to order it direct but Wein now makes a digital compatible sync for about half the price of the Digislave. I haven't seen it but might be worth calling B&H photo
 
padeye said:
You may have to order it direct but Wein now makes a digital
compatible sync for about half the price of the Digislave. I
haven't seen it but might be worth calling B&H photo
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was just reading your post over at stevesforums.com. I am going to look into that. Thanks padeye for all your help.
 
bshifflett said:
If you had a $1000 to spend on lighting equipment, reflectors and
etc.... What woudl you recommend. My camera does not have external
flash capability, so I cannot control strobe lights with it, I
would need some studio lighting that is always on. Looking at the
Photoflex systems. Does Alien Bees have anything I could use?
Thanks all!
Click to expand...
With all of this talk about adapting slaves, etc. to work with a C-3020Z, have you considered maybe spending some of your $1000 upgrading your camera so that it has the capability to drive studio lights via pc-sync (in the Olympus space, possibly either the C-4000Z or C-4040Z, which you would need a FL-CB04 cable), and then get something like the beginnerbee or digibee packages, depending on how much is left over from buying the camera.
 
Michael Meissner said:
bshifflett said:
If you had a $1000 to spend on lighting equipment, reflectors and
etc.... What woudl you recommend. My camera does not have external
flash capability, so I cannot control strobe lights with it, I
would need some studio lighting that is always on. Looking at the
Photoflex systems. Does Alien Bees have anything I could use?
Thanks all!
Click to expand...
With all of this talk about adapting slaves, etc. to work with a
C-3020Z, have you considered maybe spending some of your $1000
upgrading your camera so that it has the capability to drive studio
lights via pc-sync (in the Olympus space, possibly either the
C-4000Z or C-4040Z, which you would need a FL-CB04 cable), and then
get something like the beginnerbee or digibee packages, depending
on how much is left over from buying the camera.
Click to expand...
Thanks but I am set on keeping my camera for now, I just got it 6 months ago. When the time comes where I feel I have outgrown it, I will upgrade. The slave trigger is less than $100 and the lighting stuff is going to run me close to $1k. I cannot get a camera that would I think justify under a $1k that will make a huge difference for me. When I upgrade my camera, it is going to be an expensive one, D60 or D100 probably.

Brad
 
bshifflett said:
padeye said:
You may have to order it direct but Wein now makes a digital
compatible sync for about half the price of the Digislave. I
haven't seen it but might be worth calling B&H photo
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
I recently purchased a Wein Digital Peanut (Wein part number PN-D) to allow my Vivitar 285HV to function as a slave to my Minolta S404. It works as advertized, ignoring the first pre-flash and firing correctly at the second flash. I've only had a little time to experiment with it it but it looks like I'll be able to supplement the relatively weak flash on the camera with the other flash's output for much greater flexibility than would be the case with only the on-camera flash.
--
Ken Shafranko
 
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