Studio Questions

In my opinion it would be a mistake to purchase any of those options....!! cheaply manufactured. long recycle times. Poor or no mounting bracket. No range of modifiers..

thanks stu! yeah the second option is a mistake for sure, but I think the first one is a cheap good replacement for the cheaper ones I use to lit the background. At the same time I hope to get some Godox D300 on ebay for 50 pound

Your decision...!!

I can't go much wrong as I am using currently very cheap ones and they do their job. I got a second hand godox de 300 for 58 pound. I'll test it too.

You will experience a big difference.. I don't use them myself but the DE300's are decent strobes for a very reasonable price. And have the very popular Bowens mount...

I know that I am a pain-in-the-neck pedant, but I wish people would avoid using 'strobe' as a synonym for a flashgun. A strobe is a flashgun firing repeatedly in order to create the illusion that a rapidly cycling object is stationary - which is not how typical photographers use flashguns. This is the start of the Wikipedia entry:

"A stroboscope also known as a strobe, is an instrument used to make a cyclically moving object appear to be slow-moving, or stationary. It consists of either a rotating disk with slots or holes or a lamp such as a flashtube which produces brief repetitive flashes of light. Usually the rate of the stroboscope is adjustable to different frequencies. When a rotating or vibrating object is observed with the stroboscope at its vibration frequency (or a submultiple of it), it appears stationary."

If I used it I actually agree with you, but I probably would have linked strobe to studio light as well

Nothing wrong with a bit of pendantry, especially when talking about technical products like this.

I've noticed a tendency to divide things into two main categories .... Hotshoe battery types with a small enclosed head("flashes. Flashguns, speedlites") and bare bulb rechargable or mains powered types with accessory options for the head ("strobes. Studio strobes, Studio lights").
I suppose in fact they are both really flashes, in that the light comes out "in a flash" .

Are you shooting from as far back from the background as you can? If you can get your camera, your model, and (critically) the background lights as far away as possible from your background as possible you'll get more even coverage. (Is there scope for extending your studio? LOL)

You may end up with the background not filling the frame, but if it's even and white that would be easier to sort in PP than an unevenly lit background.

Yep even that or more lights. I can get far enough and maybe zoom more, but won't work on all the occasions. Anyhow I doubt I will use a white background often, this is more for studying purposes. After that I will try gels for colored backgrounds

A bit of more progress. With three lights and the right distance is good enough for what I wanted to achieve:

Two lights on the side at high position, one in the center at low position. The light on the side need to be a bit more powerful probably. These are unedited:


IMGP9651.jpg by sebafoto, on Flickr

IMGP9698.jpg by sebafoto, on Flickr

next thing I will try is colored gels and then I will move to a proper lighting study of the model.

More tests

another white with better distances


IMGP9731.jpg by sebafoto, on Flickr

a blue background with light leakage


IMGP9793.jpg by sebafoto, on Flickr

I was testing the various setup combinations of the godox softbox and flash to avoid the leakage, but the softbox got eventually on my nerves. Stu was right, it's a pain to use for tests. I would still like it if I knew immediately which setup to use. For this reason I decided to spend more money and buy this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JQ63G5K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ASGC1KLFC2VW6&psc=1

a bit expensive but at least it has the bowens adapter. It's smaller than the godox (which is 80 cm), but I think that in a small studio 80cm was too big anyway.

I also want to buy a beauty dish, but I am not sure if I should for for a small 42cm or a bigger 60cm which I can't find for a small price. The best so far is this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01M1EJQEX/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A18FRNQNEN49EZ (because it has got the grid)

also is there any real difference between neweer and godox when we talk about cheap softboxes?

42cm is still too big for your small studio, get a 30cm one.

hmmm today I will get the 60cm softbox, I will see if I can manage the leaks if so I guess 42cm will be OK. 30cm honestly sounds too small for a beauty dish too me, I will get very harsh shadows.

anyway I suspect you never watched the Gavin Hoey Adorama series, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiCj9svU8Ic
he uses quite big lights in a smaller studio.