Why strobes for studio work?

Probably a silly question but why use stobes for studio work? I would have thought that constant lighting (spots, halogen etc) would be cheaper and you don't have to worry about sync or triggers or flash exposure etc.

They generate a lot of heat.

Typical studio strobes provide much more light for an exposure than so-called "hot" lights.

"Hot" lights are just that - physically hot and uncomfortable after a little time. They also provide levels of light that are hard on the eyes of any people who are subjects under the lights.

Strobes also use far less energy than "hot" lights as they are essentially drawing from the power source only while recharging and not all the time as continuous lighting is.

Vendee wrote in post #7716757
Probably a silly question but why use stobes for studio work? I would have thought that constant lighting (spots, halogen etc) would be cheaper and you don't have to worry about sync or triggers or flash exposure etc.

Sweaty models with sticky clothes and runny makeup are not in fashion at this particular point in time.

They do have some very nice cool continuous lights but they don't produce a heck of a lot of light. This means higher ISO's, longer shutter speeds and wider apertures than desired. If you were doing only sitting portraits of adults you could make it work and produce beautiful images but anything outside of that would just give you problems and remove a lot of the flexibility you have with strobes.

When shooting products in the studio, or even larger sets, its not uncommon to want to shoot at very small apertures. Even as deep as f32, f45, f64, especially when shooting large format. As mentioned, it comes down to power, and color consistency. Hot lights generally tend to drift some as they age. Strobes are more consistent. And trying to shoot at f32 with hot lights takes a tremendous amount of power, and the heat that comes with it.

There is also the speed issue. With a strobe firing at say 1/2000th of a second, you can freeze motion and create super sharp images even with moving subjects.

All the above add up to a distinct advantage for strobe, both in and out of the studio. Even though I love shooting with hot lights (these all shot with hot lights), strobes clearly have the advantage.

I recently came across a company who made lights for tv and film. It seemed like a fairly normal light was in the 3-6kw range and they made ones up to 24kw. I'd imagine they would work quite well for still work as well

Thanks to everyone for the explanations

Strobes are used much more often for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is that they are not hot. You do not get hot sweaty models that are squinting their eyes when you use strobes. Also strobes consume way less power. With hot lights they are on constantly and they produce heat which you then have to crank the AC. Hot lights also tend to be heavier and more dangerous than strobes. A big 24k hot light is heavy. The grip gear normally associated with hot lights is also much heavier and harder to move.

Contrary to what a lot of people on here have been saying constant lights are used a lot in a studio photography setting. I have been on sets where they have been used for product photography, food photography, and a lot of other commercial portraits. One of the big benefits of hot lights is that you can always see your light. Also they do have hot lights that allow you to shoot at f32 at say 1/250 at ISO 100.

Hot lights are used all the time for video shoots because you have to have a constant light source. So they have to deal with the negative side of hot lights all the time.

Some of the leading brands in hot lights are Smith Vector, Mole-Richardson, Kinoflo and Arri. They all have some amazing units. Also Arri on their website has a cool little exposure calculator for their lights.