[philbaum]

I'm all about continuous light for stills, portraits and other set-up work--since 1970.

I just can't wrap my head around intricate flash work, especially anticipating shadows, and I find continuous easier.

Well, my fellow Pentaxian and myself finished the shoot of 12 actor headshots tonight. Thankfully i unpacked the "home" Westcott kit the night before and tried everything out. The dang kit even came with a DVD to explain it. Also came with a floor sheet that was marked up in a decorative fashion to show where everything should be placed. It felt kind of hoky like "paint by the numbers", but i have to admit - it worked and worked well.

We had 500 watt bulbs for the primary and secondary lights. These shot backwards towards silver umbrellas which reflected a nice soft light to the subjects. 1000 total watts, not including 100 watts i added to backlight the provided background for the wall, sounds like a lot, but it wasn't. We were in an old frame house, had to move the lights forward a foot or two to get adequate light. Even then my buddy was shooting at f2.8 1/125sec 200 iso or more for proper exposure.

For 110/120 volt systems, 1100 watts of light means roughly 11 amps. many older and perhaps newer houses use as little as 15 amp breakers, so i was a little concerned that we might lift a breaker. So i did bring an extra long extension in case we had to distribute one of hte lights onto a second circuit. I suppose that might be one reason to go with a fluorescent system rather than tungsten. But we didn't lift any circuits. The other convenient thing about 1000 watts, is i happen to have a 1000 watt Honda generator because of occasional power losses in my area. Which means i can use these lights without being on the grid. For a relatively cheap kit, it worked fine.

But once it was set up, it was bang, bang, bang, no waiting for recharge. The results were as good, probably better than any headshots i've seen out of this theatre group in the last 2 years. Before, i had heard some grumbling from some actors, this time, there were a lot of smiles, and the photos looked very good, backlit and all.

There were a coupla people who noticed the heat build up, but we were quick to turn them off whenever there were delays.

This will probably sound superficial, but there was something very satisfying in using continuous lighting, can't explain it. part of it was perhaps that when the actors showed up and saw our setup, they took it very seriously, realizing we were serious about it. the play director was very helpful, when we were through with one, she had the next person marshalled up ready to go.

a good night, everyone was ready to get the job done :-)

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Last edited by philbaum; 10-19-2010 at 10:08 PM.

[FullertonImages]

Awesome! Post some results up!

[Ira]

Well, my fellow Pentaxian and myself finished the shoot of 12 actor headshots tonight. Thankfully i unpacked the "home" Westcott kit the night before and tried everything out. The dang kit even came with a DVD to explain it. Also came with a floor sheet that was marked up in a decorative fashion to show where everything should be placed. It felt kind of hoky like "paint by the numbers", but i have to admit - it worked and worked well.

We had 500 watt bulbs for the primary and secondary lights. These shot backwards towards silver umbrellas which reflected a nice soft light to the subjects. 1000 total watts, not including 100 watts i added to backlight the provided background for the wall, sounds like a lot, but it wasn't. We were in an old frame house, had to move the lights forward a foot or two to get adequate light. Even then my buddy was shooting at f2.8 1/125sec 200 iso or more for proper exposure.

For 110/120 volt systems, 1100 watts of light means roughly 11 amps. many older and perhaps newer houses use as little as 15 amp breakers, so i was a little concerned that we might lift a breaker. So i did bring an extra long extension in case we had to distribute one of hte lights onto a second circuit. I suppose that might be one reason to go with a fluorescent system rather than tungsten. But we didn't lift any circuits. The other convenient thing about 1000 watts, is i happen to have a 1000 watt Honda generator because of occasional power losses in my area. Which means i can use these lights without being on the grid. For a relatively cheap kit, it worked fine.

But once it was set up, it was bang, bang, bang, no waiting for recharge. The results were as good, probably better than any headshots i've seen out of this theatre group in the last 2 years. Before, i had heard some grumbling from some actors, this time, there were a lot of smiles, and the photos looked very good, backlit and all.

There were a coupla people who noticed the heat build up, but we were quick to turn them off whenever there were delays.

This will probably sound superficial, but there was something very satisfying in using continuous lighting, can't explain it. part of it was perhaps that when the actors showed up and saw our setup, they took it very seriously, realizing we were serious about it. the play director was very helpful, when we were through with one, she had the next person marshalled up ready to go.

a good night, everyone was ready to get the job done :-)

Glad to hear it went well, and to me, one of the most satisfying aspects of continuous is the WYSIWYG you get through the viewfinder.

When I did small subject stills (vases, flowers, etc.) backin the stone age, I used letter-size black cards/sheets right off the subject (but out of frame of course) to darken the edges. To soften dark edges, I used white cards.

It's tricky how to position those cards, but with continuous, I just looked in the viewfinder before pulling the trigger.

[johnmflores]

I've been waiting and waiting for someone to tell the obvious joke. Nobody has so I'll have to step in....

I love continuous lighting. I use the sun.

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest, I bought a couple of Lightpanel knockoffs from LinkDelight and have been using them in my quick and dirty product shot setups:







Being able to keep the lights on without generating heat, all the while positioning them for the desired effect is a great benefit.

I'm not much of a strobist - it seems like such an arcane art that I haven't put the time into yet. I can't use the fake LightPanels in the field yet - they don't throw off enough light - but I imagine that we'll get there someday...