Studio 101

Photoflex?
Alien Bees?
Photogenics?

Where does one begin with a beginner studio set-up and no prior studio experience?

Shooting with XTi so wireless triggers are required.

Thanks.

I like my photogenics. I have a couple of older PL06's and 3 Studio Max II 320's. I have had no problems out of them at all. Tons of people swear by the Alien Bees.

All 3 of them will give you what you need and work in a great way, they each have advantages, alienbees is their repair service -which seems to happen because you hear from their repair service department in all the forums in the net and a lot, but they deliver fast reparations-, Photoflex uses S-type bayonet and Ebay is plagued of cheap modifiers and speed rings for S-type bayonet monolights slow recycling but you don't get to hear bad stories about them and they are pretty nice, Photogenics are nice and stable but modifiers are kinda limited (AFAIK).

As for radio triggers there are lots of options, Cybersyncs are popular because they seem to pretty awesome for the price.

I'm getting my photoflex lights today I let you know how they are.

I just got the interfit 150 markII. They are not as strong as others as far as wps goes, but absolutely perfect for home or small studio shots. They are inexpensive and put out good light.

Sure I'll upgrade more later, but for amateur ->semi-pro these lights are great. and when i do upgrade I'll continue to use them as backgrounds and gels and such. The optical slave works fantastic on these. I put my 530 in manual mode crank it down to 1/128th power, bounce it of the wall or ceiling and it triggers the interfits and doesn't add light to image. If you do go with the interfit, i find my wescott umbrellas work a bit better then the ones they provide, however I do like their softboxes. It also comes with a dvd. the dvd has some tips ( not as good as the ones from this site), and some example setups for you to start with. I thought it was definetly worth the small price i paid to learn lighting.

They work with my cactus triggers as well, but you can use them through many various methods.

My photoflex lights arrived about 3.5 hours ago since then I've been playing with them nonstop, I have to say I'm very pleased with them. The manufacture specified 4-5 second recycle time isn't horrible of course it's noticeable when strobe is at full power but it still isn't bad. I did a test shot with my starlight 650 at full power with a 5 foot octobox and the camera was set to iso 100 1/125th @ f/22 I was about 3 feet from the soft box and the strobe put out so much light it blew out my skin. I'm happy that I can finally use small apertures with out cranking my iso. I have to do more tests but over all it is a very well built product and I'm happy with my purchase.

Firotechnics wrote in post #6934239
My photoflex lights arrived about 3.5 hours ago since then I've been playing with them nonstop, I have to say I'm very pleased with them. The manufacture specified 4-5 second recycle time isn't horrible of course it's noticeable when strobe is at full power but it still isn't bad. I did a test shot with my starlight 650 at full power with a 5 foot octobox and the camera was set to iso 100 1/125th @ f/22 I was about 3 feet from the soft box and the strobe put out so much light it blew out my skin. I'm happy that I can finally use small apertures with out cranking my iso. I have to do more tests but over all it is a very well built product and I'm happy with my purchase.

Which photoflex strobe did you get? are you shooting with a softbox or umbrella..etc?

I use Elinchrom D-lites, it comes as a kit with stands and softboxes.
My triggers are Elinchrom Skyports.
If i had to do it again, I would opt for some other, universal radio trigger, if there is such an animal, that would fire off not only studio flashes but also my 430EX and 580 EX.

You can also just start with one studio flash and learn to use it with a reflector - an excellent way to ease into studio work. I bought the kit because it was much cheaper as a kit vs cost of the individual items.

Have fun .....

Can't you plug Skyports into the 580EXII? Or get some kind of hotshoe adapter that fits on the light stand?

I used my Skyports with my Sigma flash all the time. Just bought a cheap slave hotshoe on ebay that had a port in the side and good to go.

tamtanium wrote in post #6934632
Which photoflex strobe did you get? are you shooting with a softbox or umbrella..etc?

I got the starflash 650 and a 5 foot octo dome and I have a 30 umbrella also but i like the octo dome more than the umbrella, I'm also getting a free starflash 300 I just have to wait for it to come