Studio lighting questions

The family would like to get some family group photos for a grandparent. Some of the older children are reluctant to go to a studio so I'm thinking of getting some entry level studio lights and taking them myself.

I recall seeing a starter kit of some sort in Jessops and wonder if this is the right way to go or would I be better off getting individual items?

That seems a lot of expense for a couple of pics. Why not hire them or use 2, 3, or 4, flashes?

Barry,
It depends what you want to do and what you have already... I have a pair of Pentax flash guns (AF360 & AF540) that work a treat. I've got a fairly cheap Hama brolley that has a flash hot shoe mounting. I mount a flash on that on a cheap tripod and use fully manual mode and get great results.

If you want to do a reasonable amount of studio type work, I would suggest investigating the Elinchrom DLite2 kit. Probably a bit more than the Jessops kit but has the following advantages:
* Fast recharge time
* Consistent light output and quality
* Fully adjustable light output
* Built in slave triggers (so you don't need wires to synchronise)
* Supplied soft-boxes.

www.theflashcentre.co.uk is a good place to start looking
( http://www.theflashcentre.com/d-lite-2-two-head-kit-i547.html )

If you're not going to do a lot of studio style work, then you might get away with an AF360, a brolley, and a reflector or two. That at least gives you the flexibility for "normal" flash work too.

Oh, and of course, you'll need to schedule in some serious practice before you do the family shot Find a willing subject who doesn't mind hanging around and just try out settings, angles, positions etc. The studios make it look really easy because they do it all the time - if you've not tried it before you may find it a little harder than you expected

There should be an article on flash in the Pentax User magazine coming up very soon...

Hope that helps!
Matt

Thanks very much Matt and Peter,

I won't be doing a lot of studio work so that's the sort of advice I'm looking for. I haven't got a flash unit at all yet so getting the two Pentax flashs will be the way to go. I assume the flash has a slave setting?

By manual mode, could you let me know a typical set up please? Is that needed so it acts as a slave? I will have to read up on the flash units so sorry if these questions could be answered in the user guides.

Does the in-body flash play a part? I'm thinking it could trigger the AF360 & AF540 flash units on separate tripods or is only one off camera flash required?

I'll look at getting a Hama brolley and another tripod.

I also really appreciate the advice regarding practice. Some of my subjects will have little patience i think so when I get the opportunity I will need to be sure of what I am doing.

I've always preferred incandescent lights to flash - no recycle time and mush easier to control and see what you are doing. Recently I've been using Kinoflo http://www.kinoflo.com/Lighting%20Fixtures/Diva-Lite/Diva-Lite.htm Which have banks of flourescent tubes and come in a variety of sizes from small enough to attach to a car sun visor and power from the cig lighter socket right up to truly huge ones. Big advantage is that they come with two sets of tubes, daylight and tungsten, although I find daylight a bit cool and tungsten a bit warm. This is easily solved by using 3 daylight tubes and 1 tungsten or vice versa. They are very light and have barn doors although there can be but of light spillage if you are working in a confined space. They are inexpensive to hire from Lee Lighting if you are lucky enough to live near one of their branches.

A Dutch photography magazine (Zoom) recently suggested using the type of halogen work light used by builders, and available from DIY stores, (a bit like this one http://www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=20001... ) often with a tripod. Drape it with fireproof material to diffuse the light, or set up other material at a safe distance away -those lights get seriously hot! Plus an old umbrella spray painted silver, and a few lengths of cheap material for backdrops.

Gwyn - yes, you can use those, but as you say they get seeeeeriously hot and aren't funny on the eyes either. Look at the 500W halogen for a second and you won't see properly for half an hour! Screwfix.co.uk do them at stupid prices (think I paid £6.99)

Places like Ikea and Homebase also do very cheap dimmable halogen lamps - these are great for closeups, but are probably not up to the job for group sittings.

Personally, especially if I go to someone else's house to take portraits, I'll stick to "cool" flash

Alternatively, I did see a great result with someone using available window light, some kitchen foil covered pieces of card, and some white sheets of polystyrene. The result was superb too!

The bottom line is - you've got to experiment, experiment, experiment!

Matt