my home studio - suggestions needed (Adelaide, South Australia)

The original D-Lite is no longer available, AFAIK... only the 2 and 4. And I never said the 197cm Octa...

in the interest of getting the best price i have sent an email to masdens to see if they can beat kayall's price...

thanks for the heads up lets see if i can get it a little cheaper...

They won't, I tried. They even tried to charge me more, even though they had an ad in the paper with the current "special price". I'd avoid Madsens unless they're the last resort... I've never seen a good deal at Madsens! BTW, the Kayell price is better than you could get it for from B&H (after freight and GST).

Disclaimer: No affiliation, just a satisfied customer! I frequently do NOT buy from Kayell because I can get stuff in cheaper from the States or elsewhere, but this time they have the best deal. Also, their after-sales service has never disappointed! I wish I could give them more business, but when I can save thousands on one deal, it would be foolish. I do give them a chance every time though, and if they're reasonably close, they're my supplier of choice.

Rudi wrote in post #5669619
The original D-Lite is no longer available, AFAIK... only the 2 and 4. And I never said the 197cm Octa...

Ah... confused by the inches measurement

Yeah, I heard that the 100w D-Lite was stopped - just pointing out that more power is not always better, especially when shooting glamour. I used to use 400w lights in a small studio and had to use them on their lowest settings just to get f8-f/11.

Unless you shoot outdoors or have a large studio with huge umbrellas and softboxes, the lower power levels achievable with 100-200w lights will be more valuable than the higher levels you can get with 400w lights unless you're content to shoot everything with a lot of DOF.

I agree with you, Hermes. Best of both worlds would be to have both kits! The other thing that I would do, if I needed to shoot really shallow DOF (I have the 85L), would be to just shoot with available light, or bounce the flash off a couple of walls. No one says you have to use the softboxes that come with the kit!

Rudi wrote in post #5669785
I agree with you, Hermes. Best of both worlds would be to have both kits! The other thing that I would do, if I needed to shoot really shallow DOF (I have the 85L), would be to just shoot with available light, or bounce the flash off a couple of walls. No one says you have to use the softboxes that come with the kit!

Best of both worlds for me is the 300RX with a 6-stop range - with some light ND filters (0.3 and 0.6) and the right modifiers you can get just about every aperture you could want out of the lights from f/2 to f/16. If you turn the 250w modelling lights up and switch the WB to tungsten you can use them as continuous lights and get even wider apertures.

That is the kit I will end up getting - the 600RX kit with another 300RX strobe. Just a matter of time (and clients paying their bills LOL)...

no response from masdens, order sent to kayell. thanks again folks! delivery next week. same week the iphone announcements are made for 3g and local release = good week!

BJWOK wrote in post #5670066
no response from masdens, order sent to kayell. thanks again folks! delivery next week. same week the iphone announcements are made for 3g and local release = good week!

After all that, I hope you're gonna show us some of the photos!

you know it! i will post the test shoot with my german friend who is here for another couple of days too. (but this will be using two 500w halogens from my lightbox!)

ok as planned i had my german friend model for me over the weekend

i am waiting on delivery of my d-lite 4, so i used my two 500w halogen lights from my light box and got some interesting results.

first shot is another closer look at the background with the lights on: bright!! (excuse the focus)

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first pic i took in a studio ever! and it's a keeper!

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some black & white work with the halogen lights - blown out, but still works i think. no photoshop smoothing on skin here btw.

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last one, my friend wanted chocolate as part of the deal to get her in front of the camera. i thought this pic was cheeky, fun and sexual too.

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hi folks, just received the d lite 4's today and have set them up (and struggled with the softbox assembly like others here lol!)

doing a shoot tomorrow night with my housemate, in the meantime heres a couple of pics.

what settings does everyone think i should be using? for these shots i had the power adjustment setting on both lights at 2.0 (the lowest) and the modelling lamp set to MAX.

i shot using M mode with a shutter of 160, ISO 100 and with my 24-70L i was at 2.8 the whole time.

rudi? be keen to hear your thoughts on these settings champ as i really don't know what i am doing!

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