Using speed light w/ studio strobes

I have a Hensel setup I play with as a hobby. I got a great Deal on Craig’s list with them. Two hensel studio strobes. I have a large octa, small rectangle soft box, and two 6 footish strip banks with grids I just picked up.

Now for the question. I have a canon 580 exii and a 430. Want to explore three light setups. Strip banks to the side and use my smaller speed lights for a fill in the front.

Since the studio strobes have such high power to them, can the 580 push enough to fill in front? Or should I get one of those mounts where I can mount both speed lights and fire them together in a soft box?

What setups have people used with speedlights and studio strobes?

Definitely maybe.


Not enough info to give a worthwhile answer, but similar things have been done before.

Very possible if it's indoors or lower ambient light situations. Just lower the power of the strobes to balance with the speedlights. I often shoot with a 600w strobe accompanied with speedlights.

Some samples of one strobe and speedlights.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/ED6Y​83

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FZWE​Ja

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Z5Fa​ws

I rarely shoot with my studio strobes at full power, so matching output with my speedlights isn't difficult. I also use them for smaller tasks like shooting through snoots for face or hairlighting, or as a background light on a stand behind the model.

Indoors, it shouldn't be a problem. I've done it a number of times, though I stopped mixing my Canon 430EXII with my Hensels due to the Canon having a cooler WB. When I mixed them, I would gel the flashgun.

I had a Metz flashgun whose WB at full power was the same as the Hensels, and that's the flashgun I used to use with them all the time—till it died, that is.

Now, with 3 Integra 500s, I don't need to use the flashgun anymore anyway.

As was mentioned above, if you keep your Hensel's output low, you can use the flashgun without much trouble, or no problem at all. It all depends on the aperture values you need. I tend to shoot at small apertures in the studio, and thus, **I** would find the light from a flashgun too weak. Your mileage might vary.

Experiment!

I mix strobes and flashes all the time in the studio, and rarely run out of steam. My flash units (550EX, 430EX, SB-800, SB-5000, Contax TLA360) have manual settings and a variety of triggering options. Flashes with their fresnel lenses are remarkably efficient for direct lighting (b/g, hair, rim, hard key), and for diffusion/bounce if placed close to the subject. My strobes can do that, too, but are bulkier to deploy: they usually serve in heavy-lift roles like overpowering the ambient and with energy-hungry modifiers.

Same as Rico, now I use my bunch of speedlites only for hair light, rim light and background light.

Sometimes I use it as main light with fresnel modifier to emulate spotlight.

As others have pointed out one consideration is color temp.
Another is power out out. This also impacts recycle time and motion stopping considerations.
Some modifiers will be hard to fill with the fresnel head on a speed lite,especially if it has to be zoomed way out for beam spread.

Other than those considerations its light.

bphillips330 wrote in post #18546361
Now for the question. I have a canon 580 exii and a 430. Want to explore three light setups. Strip banks to the side and use my smaller speed lights for a fill in the front.

Since the studio strobes have such high power to them, can the 580 push enough to fill in front?

most have explained use as rim or "mood" lighting, which is a completely different use than what I took away from the OP.

just sayin'

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18547229
most have explained use as rim or "mood" lighting, which is a completely different use than what I took away from the OP.

just sayin'

Haha, good call.

I think someone above mentioned that it might be possible, but it all depends on the target aperture for the main. At shallow DOFs, if the target aperture is, say, f/5.6, the speedlight would only have to put out a value of f/2.8 for a 4:1 ratio, or f/4.0, for a 2:1. Again, indoors this is probably quite doable.

Yet again, the problem of the different colour temperatures gets worse if the flashgun is used as fill, especially because Canon's lights tend to be on the bluer side of the spectrum. The colour cast imparted on the subject would be a post-processing nightmare to mitigate (I won't even say 'to correct').

Ohh. Never thought about the WB issue. Duh. I need to Order some gels anyways. Do you remember what gel you would use?

Yes. I should clarify. This is strictly indoor use. The hensel will be on both sides gridded in a strip bank. High contrast sports type shots. The speedlights will be to pop some fill into the face. Only things I have to use on the speedlights would be umbrella or a large rogue flash bender I use.

I just have to play around I guess with setups. Need to get some gels and learn to use them to match the WB.

bphillips330, just going by the specs in their respective manuals, the Canon appears to be 5200K at full power, whereas Hensels are ~5500K +/- 50K; thus, I'd use a 1/4 (or 1/8 if you can get it) CTO on the flashgun.

Alternatively, if your Hensels are on the sides, behind the athlete, you can use a couple of foamcore boards in front of them for fill.

bphillips330 wrote in post #18547254
Yes. I should clarify. This is strictly indoor use. The hensel will be on both sides gridded in a strip bank. High contrast sports type shots. The speedlights will be to pop some fill into the face. Only things I have to use on the speedlights would be umbrella or a large rogue flash bender I use.

I just have to play around I guess with setups. Need to get some gels and learn to use them to match the WB.

My suggestion in balancing speedlight vs. studio heads is to first get a neutral gray card (often called '18% gray card') and shoot that card with a single source, and shoot one photo with each source. If you then take the RAW photo into an app like Lightroom, you can then use its Eyedropper on the gray card to derive a neutral White Balance value in each photo. If you then look at the resultant setting values, you can see quanitified how the sources differ from each other.
As an example:

1. Studio head, 7" reflector, full power: temp 5200K, tint -1
   
2. Studio head, 7" reflector, 1/16 power: temp 5200K, tint -5
   
3. Studio head, softbox, full power: temp 4800K, tint +0
   
4. Studio head, softbox, 1/16 power: temp 4800K, tint -4
   
5. Speedlight (no modifiers), full power: temp 5600K, tint -2
   
6. Speedlight (no modifiers), 1/16 power: temp 5600K, tint -3
   

• your studio flash gets a bit pinkish at low power settings (e.g. Buff).,
  
• putting the studio head into a softbox somewhat warms the light,
  
• you need a 1/8 CTO gel that warms your speedlight by 600K to be more similar to your studio flash (when studio flash is in a softbox)