Alien Bees - I hate how things just ADD UP

awad wrote in post #2957317
heh heh heh.

[music] from the east coast to the west coast . . . [/music]

I currently have 6 AB's (2 each 400,800, & 1600 ) and 2 photo hot lights and 2 Home Depot Work lights.
There has only been one occasion to date where I used all 6 ABs and one home depot light and one hot light (maybe, can't remember if I was running video or not )

The Home depot light is so I get enough ambient light to get the autofocus to work, I bounce it off the back ceiling/wall. It adds a nice pleasing golden glow to the images when I use it.

The hot light is usually just far behind and below the main and is there solely for the video if I am running video for background material. It maybe adds at most a stop of light and is very close to the same temperature as the ABs.

The one time I used all 6 ABs the 400's were main and fill, the 800's were back/background lights. I used one 1600 w/3-stop ND filter and snoot as spot. And the final AB1600 with ND and a color gel was used to add color to the background itself only.

If I had more lights in use then that I would need an assistant as the only purpose would be spot lights and I would have to be changing them constantly.