Help me build a home studio

Currently I use a white sheet and a single 580 ex for my portrait work. I shoot mostly family occasionally friends, but I like to continue to build my skills and professional setup still even if I don't make much money at it. I'm thinking of getting a few strobes and learning a bit more about lighting setups. I have a cheap impact umbrella set that came with my 580 ex (two 32" shoot thru umbrellas with back covers and two lightweight stands). I've only really researched Alien bees, but am open to other brands.

What I'm considering getting:

- 1 B400
- 2 B800s
- 51" PLM
- 1 13' stand

- I don't have high ceilings
- I will mostly shoot indoors with the strobes.
- I mainly shoot my kids and need fast setup and breakdown.
- budget is flexible, I know this stuff is expensive and get it a piece at a time as i can afford it

Below is a couple examples of my current work for reference.

Greetings, MJ!

All the best to you building a home studio! Here are my thoughts. For reference, my home studio is based on using two 580EX IIs and one 430EX. I've worked in rented studio space using, among a few different types of lights, AB800s.

The Alien Bees strobes are very good. Personally I wouldn't go with the B400; I'd stick with the B800s for power. On the other end of the power, I've read that the B1600s don't adjust very well, so the B800s are probably the ideal lights.

On light stands, I have two normal light stands. On my shopping list are C-stands, or Century stands. They're fairly heavy duty light stands with a boom. Whereas a normal light stand will bring the light up, a Century stand will help you move it over. These aren't designed for heavy equipment, so you'll need to see what the light stands you are considering can do. In other words, whatever stand you choose, you need to be sure it can handle an AB and the heaviest modifier you expect to use.

You might price a few different types of configurations, one based entirely on ABs, and one on Canon Speedlites. Whereas the ABs have more power and have the advantage of modeling lights, the Speedlites can go anywhere very easily. With the 600EXs and the compatible Canon radio transmitter, the ST-E3-RT, you have built-in radio flash triggers that can use E-TTL. Is E-TTL important to you? Price everything: lights, radio triggers, modifiers, rechargeable AA batteries, rechargeable battery pack for the ABs, et al.

You're near Albany. See if you can rent studio space that has ABs available for use. Experiment and see what works for you. Bring a friend who wants to play Model For A Day.

Everything at the link below was shot with the three aforementioned Canon Speedlites. I used Vello flash triggers (B&H brand), two umbrellas, and Gary Fong light modifiers. My seamless studio space is a one car garage in my suburban townhouse. (On white seamless, use B&H or Adorama as your price standard. Some off-brands like to charge twice as much.)

http://grahamglover.ze​nfolio.com/p489265664

Good luck! I hope this helps!

How big of a space do you have to create your studio? There's no point in getting huge lights and modifiers if they aren't going to fit in your space and you have to be shooting them at 1/64th all the time, either. If you are looking for fast setup/takedown, don't have a lot of space to work with, and you already have the 580, you may simply look at adding radio triggers and flashes to your existing setup, along with some new stands and modifiers.

Strobes are great for a number of reasons- durable, consistent power output, can take large modifiers, etc. Speedlights are great for speed. Easy to set up and take down, no cords to worry about, take less storage space.

For a small home studio you may want to take on location, I'd consider a yongnuo 560TX, 2-4 yonguo560 III or IV flashes, some decent stands, s brackets, and a few nice foldable softboxes with grids. A good battery charger and some eneloops, and you are all set. The whole setup with 3 flashes should run you around $500-700, and will always have a use, even if you decide to go with studio strobes for a larger space in the future.

Some thoughts:

For a small studio, small subjects, and a wide aperture (as shown in your two sample photos), you don't need a lot of power. In fact, too much power can work against you, if you can't turn down the lights low enough to use your wide apertures. As Graham noted above, the AB1600 is likely going to be way too much. I don't know how low the B800 goes. You might change your set to one B800 and two B400s.

My studio strobes are Elinchrom D-Lite 2 it - almost the lowest power that Elinchrom makes - and I've never needed more power. I generally only shoot individuals and medium-small groups (under 20 people), and I don't go outdoors midday to try to overpower the sun with my strobes.


If you're going with Speedlights and you're comfortable with manual flash power*, it's a way better deal to get non-Canon-branded non-ETTL flashes. I've been working with one 430EXII and two Yongnuo YN-560IIs for about four years, and this setup has done me really well. At this point, I don't know if I would buy those exact Yongnuos again, as there are better options out there - they're up to version IV of the YN-560, and the current Godox/Neewer offerings look really attractive too. At a fraction of the price of the Canon speedlights, you'll have much more dough left over for extra modifiers, backdrops, props, and backup gear.

*If you're considering the Alienbees, you'll need to get your head around manual flash power anyway, since I don't believe they offer any sort of ETTL.


Benefits of Speedlights:
- Cheaper
- Smaller, lighter, easier to transport, store, and set up
- Battery powered - no outlet needed

Benefits of studio strobes:
- MODELING LIGHT (this is a #1 big benefit over Speedlights)
- More power
- Huge variety of modifiers

I have a small studio similar to what you building. Currently, I use 3 600EX-RTs and the ST-E3-RT for lighting. Using them in a confined space, I can easily blow white backgrounds using umbrellas and then have a main light. If you go this route, make sure you have some kind of controller that allows you to change power from your position. Walking around and changing lights is a PITA.

That said, I want more access to larger modifiers and some items that aren't made for Speedlights, so I am moving to strobes for that reason only. I have a Indra 500 which seems to be working well now that I understand it. Not sure if this is the way I'm going, but a good start. I have had Einsteins before and they are very good on all levels. What I didn't like is some of the PCB modifiers, specifically, the softboxes. While they are umbrella style and fold down and are excellent quality, they don't fold completely and are heavy. Fotodiox makes some that fold completely, so I would check them out.

Price everything as recommended above. It's the little things you forget that add up and add up quickly.

To clarify. I'll be mainly shooting in my living room. Very large open room, 25' by 50', but normal ceiling height. Not sure if this matters much.

nathancarter wrote in post #17491161
Some thoughts:

For a small studio, small subjects, and a wide aperture (as shown in your two sample photos), you don't need a lot of power. In fact, too much power can work against you, ...
You might change your set to one B800 and two B400s.

I definitely need to work on adjusting my aperture more. I have a habit of always shooting wide open. I'd like to work on deeper DOF especially with the added power i'll have.

huntersdad wrote in post #17491188
Price everything as recommended above. It's the little things you forget that add up and add up quickly.

Thanks. I'm sure im not considering all the little things. Am I missing anything other than modifiers and stands? I probably should get some type of remote trigger, haven't looked into them much. Can anyone recommend something? Should I just get the PCB one if I go with Alien bees?

The little things people tend to miss:
Clamps, reflectors, sandbags, batteries, cables, triggers, grids, snoots, etc.

As far as stands and modifiers go, it's always better to buy bigger/better than you currently need, so when you are ready to upgrade to new lights or modifiers, you don't have to replace all your stands as well.

Nothing worse than spending $100 on a set of cheap stands, deciding you are moving to a larger modifier or light, and then tacking an extra $200 to the cost of the new item since your stand isn't heavy enough to hold it up. The PCB stands and triggers are at a good price point, though their commander is slightly overpriced in my opinion.

I love shooting studio work but man it's a money pit!! Like Qlayer2 mentioned above there's tons of stuff to buy that you didn't think of but the nice thing is it's possible to DIY a lot of stuff too. If you're using monolights get good stands the first time.

I think your subject's size (small in your case) matters more than the room size when deciding how much power you'll need, unless you plan to illuminate the whole room. Meaning that speedlights will likely be perfectly adequate for the task. And you can use very large modifiers with speedlights, with great results. As a point of reference, in my studio (based on five YN560III speedlights + YN560TX radio controller - controls power and zoom remotely for up to 6 groups of flashes), a single YN560III inside a giant 60" octagon softbox has enough of power at 1/2 power setting to give me f/8 reading at ISO 200 six feet away from the softbox. When I use the flash's built-in diffuser, the light is even enough across the front of the softbox: only 1 stop darker at the extreme edge, compared to the center.