Re: Studio Flash Kit

Lights, real lights as opposed to flash, are very dangerous and very low
powered. They get extremely hot, such that I wouldn't want them anywhere
near a client or in a location where a kid could touch one. They also are
very weak. you will be amazed at how little light actually comes out of one
of these things, especially if you try to bounce the light into an umbrella.

You will also have colour balance problems if you use film, although with
digital photography this isn't all of that much of a problem. These lights
are going to give you a light of around 3200 degrees K and you will either
have to filter your lens, gel the lights themselves (both of which will
further weaken the light output) or use special Tungsten films.

Flashes - monolights - are not all that expensive, and are much safer and
more powerful. They should have a modeling light so that you can see
reflections in eye glasses and that kind of thing. The won't cook the
subject either and sitting under hot tungsten lights that are close enough
to allow a reasonable aperture, is no fun for the client at all. It's also
not a lot of fun for the photographer who is standing next to these lights
either. At university we had a bunch of them and although they were great
for keeping the Friday afternoon pizzas hot, they weren't much good for
anything else.

Although you can work to hurt yourself with a monolight - especially if it
has a quartz modeling light - they aren't nearly as dangerous as the
tungsten lights. They will be many times more powerful than the tungsten's
and most offer much better output control. Being flashes they also are
balanced for daylight film which is 5500 degrees K so you can use any
daylight film without any filtration. Sadly they don't help with the pizza.




David Grandy

"David Grandy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<pAWMa.33340$(E-Mail Removed)>...
> Lights, real lights as opposed to flash, are very dangerous and very low
> powered. <SNIP>

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply. You have convinced me to go for flash, which I
was leaning towards in any case.

"Hi David,

Thanks for your reply. You have convinced me to go for flash, which I
was leaning towards in any case."

- No problem. Although I don't own any yet I'm very attracted to the Alien
Bee's flashes - as Todd mentioned. Have a look.