Advice needed on lights

[1shot4u]

Is 1000 total watts continous lighting good for studio shoots, will I be able to shoot around f11 with ISO 100-200, and 125th shutter. Thanks in advance, Stephen

[Player9]

Is it 1000 watts of fluoresent, or 1000 watts of tungsten? If the latter, no way. Once you soften the light with a softbox or umbrella, you will be shooting at ISO 800.

[PacAce]

A thousand watts of continuous (incandescent) light can get pretty hot very quickly. Imaging all that heat pent up inside a softbox!

[111t]

Originally Posted by PacAce

A thousand watts of continuous (incandescent) light can get pretty hot very quickly. Imaging all that heat pent up inside a softbox!

This is what it means to me:

100watts Tungsten + easy bake oven = brownies (yum)

1000watts Tungsten = the follow spotlight i used in high school. (And burned myself on regularly)

Sorry that wasn't very helpful... except that i know there are high heat softboxes out there...

Why do you need 125th? are you taking portraits? People don't like lights that bright. Hand held? Then you could always use a tripod for product shots and use longer exposures with less light.

[1shot4u]

Portraits yes, hand held...hands can't handle 100th and down. Tripod keeps me from moving.

[SkipD]

Originally Posted by 1shot4u

Is 1000 total watts continous lighting good for studio shoots, will I be able to shoot around f11 with ISO 100-200, and 125th shutter.

Originally Posted by 1shot4u

Portraits yes, hand held...hands can't handle 100th and down. Tripod keeps me from moving.

While I don't have such lights to make measurements from, my serious guess is that you would not have enough light for those settings.

Your subjects would probably not appreciate the heat and the constant glare of the hot lights, though that's the way we all did lighting for portrait work many years ago.

Another down side of hot lights is the ongoing expense. The color of the light from incandescent hot lights changes pretty rapidly over time, so you'll be replacing lamps fairly often. They are not cheap either.

Quite honestly, you would be far better off by getting some studio flash units which have modeling lights in them. They will be brighter, last a long time with virtually no ongoing maintenance expense, and will be a lot cooler than continuous lighting.

[RPCrowe]

That is why they are called HOT lights. You can decide if you want the subjects in your portraits medium rare or well done!

In order to get a decent shutter speed f/stop, you need a lot of hot light which is not comfortable to you or to your subjects.

The bright light also results in the pupils unnaturally contracting and often making your subject look like a drug user.

Get some studio strobes which have modeling lights to give you WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) lighting. Even the inexpensive eBay Chinese strobes beat the pants of continuous or HOT lights (they also beat hotshoe flashes jury-rigged for portraiture in Strobist fashion).

[gonzogolf]

Unless you are doing video, skip the continuous lights, For all the reasons listed above, they are hot, hard to control, cant use most modifiers and imagine being your poor subject staring into all that light. I cant imagine it makes for a comfortable portrait session..

[sandpiper]

As above, these lights are not ideal for portraits. They are fine for some uses where tripods and longer shutter speeds are fine, but portraits require a bit more. 1/125th is fine for a portrait with flash, but with hotlights any subject motion will appear on the resulting image, and a person can move slightly in 1/125th second, even if trying to sit still. Not enough to result in noticeable blur maybe, but perhaps enough to cause softening of the image and kill the sharpness.

In addition, those lights will be hard to look towards. Try looking at (or past, to one side) your normal domestic, bare, 100w bulb and keeping your eyes nice and wide, which is generally how portraits tend to look best. With that much power, your subjects will be squinting and feeling uncomfortable and that will show in the images.

Like the others above, I would say forget hotlights and get some studio strobes for portrait work.

[1shot4u]

Thank you all for you comments.........strobes it is.