Critique My Home Studio Set-Up.

Okay, I'm starting to get more into lighting and heres what i've gotten so far.

2 Alien Bees B800s
1 20 degree grid
1 Medium Softbox
1 Extra Large Softbox
2 Light Stands
1 Boom Arm
Several Reflectors
Several Umbrellas
A Backround Support System(seamless paper coming soon)
Sandbags

Is there anything else I need for the time being? I also have a 580 and 430 ex so i could probably use those some how.

I would add a good meter such as the Sekonic L-358 to that package.

Well, i have a L308 that i use with hot lights and my view camera, i've been really content with it so far. But with this studio set up, the L-358 might have more features that i'll find useful. thanks!

The Sekonic 308 is a very nice flash meter and will work fine with your set up. No need to jump to 358 just for a small incremental improvement of features.

Enjoy! Lon

Awad - you didn't list ANY light meter, and that's why I recommended the L-358. The L-308 should be just fine. A lot of folks try to get away with NO light meter, and I merely presumed that may have been the case with your list of equipment.

I understand Skip, sorry about that. But I definetly understand where you're coming from, a light meter is super important, i was just listing the stuff i just bought, so i forgot to include it. and thanks for saving me money Lon!

also, do any of you use your 580 as a backround light? is it powerful enough? or would it make more sense to make a b800 a backround light, and use the 580 as a hair light??

Mixing Speedlites and studio flash units is not nearly as easy as it seems that it should be.

Many slave receivers (hotshoes with slaves built in) do not properly trigger Speedlites a second time without cycling the power on the Speedlite after the first shot.

If you are using a Speedlite triggered by the camera (either directly or via a master Speedlite or ST-E2), both the camera and the Speedlite need to be in manual control. There's no way to simply blend an automated Speedlite (operating in ETTL control) with studio lighting and have it work as expected.

To me, it makes sense to have much simpler flash lighting in the studio and forget the Speedlites all together when using studio flash equipment. There are many small flash sources that will operate properly with simple optical slaves, and they are much less expensive than a Speedlite or the ST-E2.

Yeah, That makes sense, I'd use everything manually in the studio anyways, so i was just hoping to add in what i already had. I'll try it out when everything comes in. Thanks again Skip!

Some users have indicated good function with a Wein "Peanut" optical slave with Canon flash units. You may want to contact the forum user "Lotto" regarding this. You would also need a hotshoe adapter for the flash.

But, in general most optical slaves just do work with recent Canon Speedlights. I have personally tried other Wein units (but not specifically a Wein "Peanut") and several other optical slaves that just do not function properly with the Canon Speedlights.

Please note that these trials were in manual mode, so the a flash preflash was not the underlying problem with the optical slaves I tried.

But, Skip is right. You may just want to dodge the annoyance of Canon Speedlights and use some other inexpensive flash units that operates more harmoniously with common optical slaves.

Canon makes using there flash units in a "general" manner far more difficult that necessary. It is a big distraction from there very expensive flash units.

Enjoy! Lon

Awad your set-up is terrible

put in all in a box and mail it to me, i will throw it away for you

then you can just start all over again

<3