strobes or constant light?

which do you prefer and why?

afoord82 wrote in post #12486060
which do you prefer and why?

Depends on the task at hand. Strobes... well, strobe, and therefore "stop" motion at slower shutter speeds, constant lights will do something completely different.

I would say, if you are just starting out with off camera lighting, I would go with a constant light source, and then move up to some sort of manual strobe.

You can make your own cheap light sources

Strobes. Much much much more powerful than constant light. Constant light is great for product photography where things don't move. I'm a portrait photographer, so constant lighting doesn't work at all.

http://fstoppers.com …oses-the-perfect-headshot

Peter Hurley uses constant light for portaiture. and his work is pretty amazing. lights are lights, its up to you which one you decide on using. constant lights will make the room hotter of course, but allow you to see your finished exposure. pro's n cons to both.

I'd love to get some kino lights for constant light shooting for more natural looking light.

Both systems have different looking light.

For now, strobes. The CFL technology is getting really close to being workable in a studio, but it's still not enough power for shooting outside.

Constant lighting can make where you're shooting very hot especially with people who shoot in garages or small home made studio settings. I personally use strobes which most have modeling lights which you could use to setup the shot you want before hand. If you're shooting a lot of video or like Bill mentioned, products, then I'd suggest constant.

right now i use a 430exii flash (in a softbox) and reflector only, but would love to get a cheap constant lighting kit. For me I would like to see how the light hits the subject before I shoot. Any suggestions on an affordble 3 piece constant lighting rig? I have shop lights which I could use, but would like something more professional.

Affordable is a very vague word. Affordable to me is not the same as affordable to other people, so what's your budget like?

good point! I would like to get a basic 3 light kit for under $500. Again this would only be a starter kit.

^ i would check out Cowboy Studio's. inexpensive, it works, but its not the highest quality in the world. but they do "work".

but I would suggest strobes over constant. you can get more creative with strobes in general, especially when it comes out to balancing ambient vs. flash.

There are really three kinds of light, not the two that are assumed by the OP.

1. Those which are always on: tungten or CFL
   
2. Those which flash: Speedlights
   
3. Those which are always on and which flash: Studio flash with modelling lights
   

Tungsten lights put out a lot of heat & they draw a lot of power. Don't be surprised when the electric bill comes around.

On the fluorescent lights, if I recollect, you have to worry about the way the light cycles or something like that I believe. It's been a while since I last kept up to date with these kind of lights.

EdW wrote in post #12492106
On the fluorescent lights, if I recollect, you have to worry about the way the light cycles or something like that I believe. It's been a while since I last kept up to date with these kind of lights.

CFL tech has come a long way. Almost all of them now have electronic ballasts and (relatively) high CRI ratings. If I did purely studio work, I'd strongly consider something like the Westcott TD6s. But they are just woefully underpowered outside. I think you'd need something insane like 120,000 lumens at 6 feet to hit 14 EV...enough to balance ambient on a cloudy day. My math is probably wrong but I do know that strobes are the only way to go if you do any shooting outside.

charro callado wrote in post #12492273
CFL tech has come a long way. Almost all of them now have electronic ballasts and (relatively) high CRI ratings. If I did purely studio work, I'd strongly consider something like the Westcott TD6s. But they are just woefully underpowered outside. I think you'd need something insane like 120,000 lumens at 6 feet to hit 14 EV...enough to balance ambient on a cloudy day. My math is probably wrong but I do know that strobes are the only way to go if you do any shooting outside.

They aren't that powerful inside, either. The key difference is the amount of power you can get for a given size of light--and the difference is enormous.

Any constant source you get at less than an Industrial Light and Sound budget is going to be much, much weaker than even low-end studio electronic flash. Headshots are workable--the subject is going to keep still and you can put the light source close to the subject.

But full length in a large softbox or umbrella, and you run out of lumens really quickly.

Of course, you can DIY a really huge cold light source that throws a lot of light, and some photographers such as Bill Pierce have done so, but that's going to be a heavy, expensive monstrosity.

In these digital days, between modeling lights and the LCD, there's really very little disadvantage to studio electronic flash.