what equipment is needed home shooting.

[simmonsrandal]

i have a 430 and 580. What other equipment do i need to make my lighting standout.

Any suggestions?

[Redbird_xo]

Some light stands, homemade bounce cards, umbrellas (and brackets), reflectors will get you started. All these items can be had very inexpensively. But most important of all, to spend time and be patience to learn different lighting setups to create different effects are more important than equipment in the beginning. Follow the shadows of your subject is a good start.

Good luck.

[milleker]

I think the biggest mistake most of those starting out make is to use too many light sources. Sure, its darned exciting to put all of your lights up and shoot, but you'll never learn what each light does. As Redbird stated, its all about shadows.

I would recommend putting those strobes away and getting some hot lights (for now) - you need not buy anything. Use a lamp without a shade or a home depot $9 halogen light. Or use a big window. The big thing you want to learn is the quality of light, direction and relative size.

Next move to a strobe. Notice something different? No modeling (or always on light to see where the shadows are), just a burst of light. Strobist (David Hobby) recommends looking at your subject from the vantage point of your flash. How easy is that? Now you see exactly where the light is going to shine.

Only when you have learned one light should you move to the next one. Not sure if you have the 580EXII or not, but on camera flash is usually miserable and I would only really use it for fill light and to trigger via IR the 430. Remember that the IR on each flash must be basically facing each other.

I certainly recommend reading the Strobist site (Lighting 102 - free online 'class' is on its way) and reading the book 'Light Science & Magic' by Fil Hunter.

[Titus213]

Not equipment so much as an understanding of light and how it works. Direct light, bounced light, diffused light all have different qualities and can seriously change what an image looks like.

[hudge]

simmonsrandal,

I went from knowing nothing about off-camera flash (and very little about flash in gerneral) to now venturing into it myself with information I got from this forum as well as from these sources:

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

It's a lot of reading but perhaps these sites may give you the confidence that you need to start putting your off camera lighting setup together.

Best of luck with it!