Setting up a new pro studio, for brides, seniors and fashion. Help me!!

Hi everyone. I'm starting to setting up a my new professional studio. From now I just had a pair of umbrellas to shot some casual couple portraits. Now I have a great space here and we are planning of building a professional studio...

Here is the lighting list, would like to know your comments about it.
1) Large Softbox 1,35mx1,8m
2) Medium Shoot-thru Umbrella
3) Hair light Kit
4) Background light kit
5) A reflector

And bonus: A turbo fan

Do you think I'll achieve great looking with them? Since I love playing with the light, Will I need anything more?

I've Made a sketch:

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help me

Tileboard for the reflections to give the glamorous look.

I think pretty much you will do great with that setup, I would follow the advice given by the previous person and get tileboard for reflection, honey comb grids are important too

Now the REAL question! What lights are you going to buy???

Please.....

Please settle on studio type strobes and don't try to modify the lame hotshoe flashes into pseudo studio strobes.

Here are some of the advantages of "real" studio strobes over the "Strobist" idea of using hotshoe strobes that are modified be used in the studio.

1. Constant recycle time
2. Built in optical slaves
3. Built-in modeling lights
4. More powerful
5. Able to use many light modifiers without trying junky jury-rigging
6. Built to fit on light stands
7. A/C operation not weak AA battery power

One factor of studio strobes is a removable reflector. This provides for much more efficient use of a soft-box. You don't need to diffuse light that has already been concentrated by a reflector. Additionally, the more efficient and powerful studio strobe lends itself to be used with larger softboxes. The larger the softbox, the softer the light.

^just curious on your #4.

This thread is talking about a studio space...i'm assuming since its his space he has control of any ambient (lights or windows). So why is the power a point to even bring up? People don't have trouble overpowering sunlight using hot-shoe baised lights (I know I don't) but we arn't even talking about outside...so isn't all that extra power pointless?

Won't he have to just stop down the camera or use ND filters or something with the extreame amounts of extra power? Is there a point to shooting at lets say f22 in a stuido against your seemless paper instead of maybe 5.6 becasue you wanted to "flex" your lights"?


I'm a super noob to lighting, I'll agree that full "studio strobes" are prob. a better idea for him, I just fail to see how this point makes any sort of a difference if you are comparing it to something else that wouldn't have a problem if you have full control of the enviroment....

I could be WAY off, and if I am hopefully someone will teach me something here but to me this just seemed like a point that wasn't worth mentioning....I'm honestly hoping i'm way off on this and I learn something, but right now I have my doubts that I will be that lucky. (dont' take this as a personal attack, lol)

The difference is in the actual light output. A hotshoe flash with 2"x3" fresnel on the front, outputting entirely collimated/directional light, is a world away from a bare flash tube. Not to mention with proper strobes you don't have to worry about overheating, recycle times, switching out batteries, hotshoe adapters... should I go on?

There is absolutely no comparison. Using speedlights makes sense to you now, but wait until you work with proper lighting

Any decent light kit will also have the ability to dial down to powers nearly as low as speedlights.

Aienbees is the gold standard for entry level lighting. Made in America, very high quality, unsurpassed customer service, and best bang for your buck in the market, period. If you've got the coin, spring for the equally powered White Lightning lights because they can be dialed down even further.

Make sure to budget for accessories. As a rule of thumb, you'll spend 75% to 125% of your lights budget on the stands and modifiers. I run a full Dynalite kit (3 packs and 7 heads) and my stands and modifiers are worth way more than my Dynas. Hell, one Plume softbox runs in the neighborhood of $600....

^ who argued anything about bare bulb or even speedlight vs studio in general?

...all I talked about was making a point to say its got more power, which to me seemed pointless if you have full control of the enviroment.

but if we are going to talk about alienbee lights and dailing them down super low..its been pretty widly discussed on here recenly how they emit changing colortemps as you adjust power levels...so your "quality" of light changes.....so if we were using low power levels I would rather have a group of hot-shoe baised flashes.


i'm pretty sure everyone knows stuido stuff is better, and there is a wider range of light modifiers available off the shelf. I was just challenging some of the points being made as he was only stating differences between but stating them as advantages, when in fact I dont' see how they always are an advantage. Would you tell someone who only needs to get the lowest power light offered to go out and buy the highest and just dail it down since the more expensive one is better and has more power? That just doesn't make any sense, just buy what you need. Someone could easily say don't get stuido lights since they arn't near as portable...but if he is talking about setting up a studio why make that point? they wouldn't be moved around a lot.....see what I'm saying? To me thats what his more power statement ment....little to nothing if you have full control of the room. Something like a wider f-stop range of adjustable light or something would be a good point to make. But i'm still not getting how helpfull that extra power will be.

BTW, if you can't tell i'm not against studio lights at all...just questioning why points are being made.