Need assistance with lighting set-up

Hello All,

I need some help choosing a lighting set-up (beauty dish, umbrellas, or both; stands, etc).

Here is what I currently have:
580 EX II X2
Pixel King remote triggers for two speedlights
Canon 7D

I'm looking for something that I could take in a gym and set up and take down easily, or to be used at the beach or other outdoor areas.

I was thinking two beauty dish set-ups for speedlights but don't know what to get or who to get it from. I am not a pro so I don't want to spend a lot...maybe $200. I would be using this for team pictures and portrait style shots of my kids teams and family shots.

I have seen the Lumodi Beauty dishes and that looks good to me but not sure about which size is best, or color, or if they have a decent reputation.

Open to all suggestions and assistance.

Thank you,

Best to keep it simple starting out.
Stands, umbrella brackets and umbrellas are easiest and provide great light and a good learning tool.

Personally I like calumet stands and umbrella adapters that hold speedlites. Adorama has a nice collapsible shoot through umbrella for about $17. Or you can get umbrellas that have a detachable black back. Removing it turns a reflective umbrella into a shoot through.

With speedlites beauty dish type modifiers are small, i.e. too directional, and absorb quite a bit of light.

A beauty dish will suck a lot of power out of a speedlight and umbrellas are prone to blow over in the wind. A beauty dish would be great for individual portraits while a couple of silver umbrellas would would be great for team pics. An umbrella would also work fine for individual portraits; however, a speedlight in a beauty dish wouldn't be choice for team pics. Umbrellas are cheap so I would definitely pick a couple of those up.

Thanks guys,

Sounds like I need to start looking at umbrellas. Any advice on size, style, or brands would be appreciated.

Umbrellas, for the most part are pretty inexpensive (though there are exceptions)

I like calumet brand. Good build quality, they come with a bag for storage, and they're pretty cheap.

Size is going to be relative to the subject. The larger the umbrella the larger your spread will be. This also means your light output will be less. A smaller umbrella will give you a tighter spread and more power.

Due to the minimal cost for umbrellas, I'd recommend just picking up different styles. A white inner umbrella with a black backing is a good one to start with. Shoot through umbrellas are nice as well. Silver lined umbrellas have great uses, if you need that hard specular light for something. They are more of a specific use umbrella rather than an all the time use.

just my .02c

I just bought an Impact 15" softbox for my speedlight. I do some outdoor shooting for HS seniors, little league, etc. and found umbrellas are tough in wind. The softbox is much better in a breeze (with a weight on the stand).
I shoot a 580 flash with a radio trigger in manual mode and get great results. I went with the Impact because of reviews I read, it has an internal baffle, and a great mount for your flash.

I have chased flying umbrellas in the wind and i can tell you that its not funny. Almost lost my speedlight in several falls. Umbrellas are good for indoors only. Outdoors i would go with a softbox if i was working alone but the last thing i did which was simple yet worked well was to use a reflector. If the sun is not where you want it (in the shade or its just not enough light during golden hours), you could always erect your speedlight on a stand and get someone to hold the reflector for bounce flash or shoot through a scrim.

Thanks everyone,

Ended up with 2 - 36" umbrellas and 10' stands.

Here is my first shot with the set up. Had about 2 minutes to set up lights, pose kids and shoot...then get out of the way for the game.

IMAGE LINK: http://mvandenburg.smu​gmug.com …366251&k=nNDTg7​R&lb=1&s=A

Nice! Although it looks like the lighting was a little uneven across the group, causing harsher shadows on camera left than on the right side. How were your two umbrellas positioned? Was the left one farther away?

I set them up so fast I didn't really check but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

What I did was put one on each side angled in towards the group. They were probably about 6-8 feet away and about a foot past the last girl. I think one was a little higher than the other but not much.

Looks great to me IMHO for what you had to work with.

328iGuy wrote in post #15108078
Looks great to me IMHO for what you had to work with.

Yes, totally agree here. Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a critique thread.