Beginners Kit

What do you guys think about this kits?
http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …Plus_Three_Mono​light.html

http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …0_Photo_Basics_​Three.html

I was planning of buying 2 AB800s but the cost starts adding up from the soft boxes to the speed ring plus 1 light stand plus 1 boom stand, plus I was thinking of adding up 1-2 continuous lighting but i don't know what brand.

I just need a simple set up to begin with but I dont like to buy the same twice for upgrading. And yes I've read and seen a lot of topics here in the forum but sometimes it gets confusing with too many choices.

Please help me on putting up my garage studio. All help is appreciated.

Those Westcott strobes are actually pretty good but one thing that will drive you mad is the fact that the audible ready beep can't be turned off. That means that every single time the strobes fire and recycle you're going to hear a beep. There is no off swtich, no volume control, nothing!

SO, despite the quality of the lights being pretty decent, I can't recommend them because I assure you that you'll hate the beep by the end of a week. Sorry.

Is it possible to take the strobes apart and remove the "speaker" I guess they would use a piezo element to produce the beep, or possibly put tape over the hole where the sound comes from to reduce the volume

Mike22487 wrote in post #12060107
Is it possible to take the strobes apart and remove the "speaker" I guess they would use a piezo element to produce the beep, or possibly put tape over the hole where the sound comes from to reduce the volume

Aside from the fact that you'd be voiding warranty, I would never recommend that anyone open up a device like a strobe without an electrical background.

The mod itself might be easy but I think it's a bad idea.

I suppose you can fiddle around with a covering that muffles the sound but I'm telling you, no matter what you do, if it's beeping, it's going to bother you.

Or maybe not. I know it would drive me crazy if I couldn't turn it off. And remember, if there are 3 of them they're each going to beep when they recycle and more than likely the beeps won't be synchronized, so every time you fire the strobes you'll get beep-beep-beep.

Forgot about the whole warranty thing, I guess the beeping would get annoying, what other entry level studio strobe "kits" (at least 3 lights, some modifiers and a case) is there on the market that are not annoying?

Mike22487 wrote in post #12060812
Forgot about the whole warranty thing, I guess the beeping would get annoying, what other entry level studio strobe "kits" (at least 3 lights, some modifiers and a case) is there on the market that are not annoying?

There are other kits available that are not annoying.

Interfit makes some decent strobes, Calumet Genesis are nice, Elinchrom makes some D-Lites that rock, and I think if you look around really had on Ebay, you can get yourself a set of Speedotron Black/Brown lines (hi2u 2400 watts!) for cheap.

i would not get those kits myself. you can find items for cheap on amazon and piece it together for cheaper than the $800 on that westcott kit, and you'll have more variety. thats what im doing right now and im not spending too much.

For cheap, meaning things like Cowboy studio type stuff?

You can find cheap lights and kits but performance is usually not that great. What I mean by performance is the consistency of output and color.

To me, saving a few hundred dollars isn't worth it if my exposures or color are off from shot to shot. Don't think that it doesn't happen. It does.

So I would be very careful about some of the really great cheap options.

Even though I don't like the audible ready beep on those Westcott's, the one thing that can be said about them is that they are very stable and consistent.

They get points for that.