First time studio help needed

I have a studio booked for a day at the end of the month to do some family shots and some simple fashion products photography. The studio has a full Bowens lighting set-up which I am free to use, all I need to bring are my cameras and subjects.

Now, I have done a decent amount of strobist, multi-off-camera flash stuff but this is my first time using pro studio gear. I have no idea how to connect my cameras (K5 & K-r)to the lights. I have a yongnuo remote flash hotshoe trigger and receiver but no cables - I don't even know what a sync cable looks like, let alone which I need.

Can anyone be of any help? I would ask the studio owner but he is on holiday until two days before and if I need to buy anything specific (I was told he couldn't remember the last time someone who used the studio shot with a Pentax) then I will probably need to order it.

Can someone shed some light on this?

You'll need something like this to trigger the lights, plug one receiver into one of the Bowens and the transmitter sits on the camera.

Its worth using the other 2 in any more of the Bowens to ensure they all trigger although they should work from the flash of the first one. As a first timer, these arn't Pocket Wizard quality or Price, but they do work well in a studio setup.

If they are good quality studio lights they will most likely have optical triggers built in and if it's a pro studio they will probably have a set of radio trigger you can use, a phone call should let you know the answer.

If not no need to go to the expense of buying triggers, just use one of your flash guns dialled down to a low setting (<1/64) and pointing to the rear i.e. bounce the low power flash where it does not contribute or create catch lights, if you put a wide angle diffuser or stofen on it will work better still.

All my studio kit is Bowens and although the equipment has evolved over the years it hasn't changed all that much. What Brian says is true but I would counsel against relying on one of your own flashes. If you use soft boxes and have the lights dialled down to a low setting the optical triggers might not get enough light to work as the soft boxes mask them to some extent. You will probably want to start off with the key light on half power and the fill on quarter. My heads are 400 watt/second so not the most powerful by any means and at 200 ISO this will give you about f9.5 for portraits. Anyway I'd be astonished if the studio doesn't have wireless triggers, I use Bowens Pulsars because I found that cheap ones have a very slight delay with Bowens heads forcing me to use 125th or slower. Any specific questions please ask.

The k5 has a sync socket so you can just plug in the sync lead that they definitely will have and set the shutter speed to X and then set the aperture manually, couldn't be easier

Check out the Bowens how to videos on youtube too, there is probably a link from their web site

I would like to say a big Thank you to all for your help. I am feeling a little intimidated to be honest but you have certainly helped ease my fears.

I think I will eventually be buying my own gear but think it makes sense to see how I get on with everything before shelling out. Are the RF triggers universal (generic, pocket wizard or other) with most lighting equipment? I think it might be worth getting my own anyhow but am clueless about brands, compatibility and ratings etc.

They are all pretty much the same with the Tx using only the big centre hot shoe contact on the camera and the Rx plugging into the sync socket on the flash head. The very latest heads have the receivers built in.

Believe me studio flash is far easier and simpler to use than TTL or P-TTL!

Depending upon which generation of Bowens lamps they have, they might have pproportional modelling lamps to give you an idea of the result but it isn't so much of a big deal on digital because you can see on the camera what you are doing.

It would be worth reading up on lighting with regard to reflectors and soft boxes etc first.

If the Yongnuo set are RF602's you don't need anything else.
The receiver takes a standard flash coax which should be
available at the studio. The transmitter mounts on your
camera hotshoe.

Warning if the flash is old the voltage (300V) it might
blow the receiver.

Stick to 1/60th to 1/120th sec. to avoid a blackline accross the bottom of the shots.

Make sure you have new batteries and both channels
are set the same.

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Ha!! there's a big chunk of text that didn't make it on to my post for some reason

Anyway, here's the full text from my original post....

If not no need to go to the expense of buying triggers, just use one of your flash guns dialled down to a low setting (less than 1/64) and pointing to the rear i.e. bounce the low power flash where it does not contribute or create catch lights, if you put a wide angle diffuser or stofen on it will work better still.

I always found my RF602's to be "very" unreliable with both my Multiblitz and club Bowens studio strobes. I could never get them to sync reliably, even going down to less than 1/60 so they have been replaced by a set of Phottix Strato II triggers (Nikon version) which I can honestly say are 100% reliable, a bit more expensive but worth every penny for reliability. They also have a bonus for strobist work as the TX unit has pass through contacts that allow A & M modes to be set and used on a TX mounted flash.

One other trigger to keep an eye open for is a WEIN SSR TX/RX set, quite expensive new but I think I paid £20 on eBay for mine, worth keeping an open for.

P.S. if you include the "less than" (left pointing chevron) in your text body it will truncate your written text

I've also got a full WEIN set, very sensitive and can be triggered by fluorescent lights, but syncs at 1/180th and works up to 600M away.

I normally use a powerful Seculine IR release to trigger the Wein stuff from a distance for a meter reading and then the normal Pentax IR release for the camera.

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Thanks again everyone. I will take a look at the Wein set and the Phottix Strato II and see what I can afford to spend!