Revamp Studio Please Help!

Hi Guys, I am planning to move out of my dinky one bedroom apartment into a house sometime in the next six months and I want to convert a room into studio.

I have some things in mind already like white and black seamless to do with my grey, but I am not that knowledgeable about strobes.

I currently have two Interfit EXD200 Monolights (from a kit), they are 200 Ws lights that are pretty low end, kind of shoddy construction, etc.

As I stated earlier I want to make a room a studio so I want to get some new lights. I will most likely keep these as hair or background lights, but I want to get some new lights and modifiers.

I don't know much about light brands or specific series within those brands so I am asking a bit for help. In theses forums Alienbees seem pretty popular, but I have heard a lot of criticism for them as well. The new Einstien lights from PCB seem good on paper, but again, I don't know that much.

I know I want a durable, quality product, and professional product.

Also I don't know where to buy modifiers, what modifiers are compatible with the specific lights I get, stuff like that. I know different lights have different speedrings so I am not sure what speed rings go with what lights and what modifiers work with what speedrings.

Sorry if I sound like an idiot here, I have been doing most my lighting with my speedlites so I am a bit unfamiliar with the word of monolights. I know this is a tad long of a post (for me anyways) so I appreciate all those who answer!

The alien bees, and the calumet genesis are a step up what you have now. The bees (full disclosure, I have bees) get some unfair criticism here due to the owner of the company being a polarizing figure (nut perhaps even). Thats not to say they arent without problems. They color shift at the low end of the power band and some say they are not as consistent pop to pop as some other brands. The AB's use the balcar mount for speedrings. The Einstein lights seem to have fixed some of those bugs, but there are a few bugs to be worked and delays shipping the new product. The same company makes white lightning gear which also have fewer of the problems. The genesis use the elinchrome mount so if your goal is to get there they might be a transitional step as you wouldnt have to change the modifiers or speedrings. Elinchrome are highly respected, but I dont know that much about them.

Alien bees are a good product, i had them before, they work well for the price and their boxes are reasonable too. they do have the problems gonzogolf mentioned and most people new to strobes don't notice these problems, but as you get better you either accept them or up grade. i was happy with my bees until i started using multiple lights and colour shifts and inconsitencies frustrated me.the resale value was very high when i sold them (that's due to their popularity)

i moved to elinchrom lights and i'm very happy using multiple strobes now without issue. now before you or someone else says they are expensive, do some research and you will see the lower end Eli's are the same price as bees. next you'll see the eli mods are expensive but they are very well made and effective, having said that you can buy an ebay softbox with an elinchrom speedring for $50 it's up to your budget

Thanks for the replies so far. Thanks to both gonzogolf and FJ Love for telling me a bit about speedrings.

I don't really mind spending a little money as I have slowly become of the opinion "buy once and buy well." With that said, I don't need the most expensive lights out there, I greatly value "bang for your buck" but I don't really want to have to upgrade later down the line so I am looking for high medium end or lower higher end lights. So I think I am looking to get a little higher end than Alienbees... I think. I wasn't aware there were many differences between AB and White Lighting except for maybe build and things like cooling? As for Einsteins, it is slightly ok they are delayed since I will not be doing this immediately, some time in the next 6 months.

I have heard about Elinchrom as well as Profoto and Photogenic among other brands as respectable lights.

FJ Love > Since you have Elinchrom could you tell me about their different lights/series? I see stuff like D-Lite, Digital Style, Style BX and not really sure what the series designations imply. I am leaning to Elinchrom a bit simply because I have heard of them and I think my Interfit lights use the same speedrings so I can use the modifiers I buy for the Elinchrom lights on my Interfits as well?

EDIT: Money wise I would like to keep prices around what Einsteins cost so I would prefer no more than $500 per light, I hope this helps a bit narrowing the advice

i use the elinchrom "RX" strobes which is their top of the line model, the D lite models are their low end and the BXRI model is midrange and probably a good choice for you.

regardless of models with eli lights, they all have the same output numbers eg. 4.0 is the same output on a D lite as it is an RX and 500 watt seconds really is 500 not an estimate (no slander intended)

pm Seanzky as he made a thread comparing AB's and Elinchrom's with all the facts and figures you need to do complete research, hope this helps

Thanks a bunch, I will try to find that thread and read about it (I try not to bother people with PMs when possible).

I have never heard anything on the owner of Alienbees being a character? Do tell......

It might have something to do with his "effective watt seconds" versus "real watt seconds"?

Regardless, I would appreciate any input people have to what strobes I should get for a indoor studio, again, I would like to buy well, but I don't need the most expensive stuff ever. What are the primary differences between mid end and high end lights? Color shift? Flash duration?

Do you have an approximate budget for us to work with?

Will,
In the price range where many of us end up, the two most popular choices are probably Elinchrom and AlienBee. At least on this forum, this often falls into a Chevy/Ford PC/Mac debate. However, once you get past that, and accept that both companies make products that you can actually use to light your scene, you can make some progress in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Since you apprently have some time to research this...you are in luck ! There are a couple of threads that have been running for a long time on both these brands...so much so that the mods had to to break them apart into new threads because they have so much activity. If you read thru them, and as with a lot of things, take the extreme comments with a grain of salt. In other words, anybody who is just totally gaga over something, or equally anybody who is just totally slamming it....well...maybe question the validity of their comments. In the vast middle ground though, there are a lot of folks who give reasoned, logical comments.
And ( gasp ! ) there are actually some photos in these thread taken with these lights. Imagine that.

My suggestion is to read as much as you can about the subject. Really do your homework, because you are now entering a whole new world of shooting. The creative possibilities will go up 10 fold over what you are used to.

Buy books, go to classes/seminars if you can afford it, check out the online resources for information, and then step into it logically, slowly, and build your knowledge and equipment as you go.

At times, it may even seem very confusing because there are so many possibilities. But hang in there, the rewards are more than worth the effort you will put into it.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=935958

https://photography-on-the.net …ead.php?t=66010​0&page=200

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=632774

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=965214

I use the Norman ML-400 monolight - a little over $500. Plain and simple it works and is accurate. When dialing power levels up and down the color and power stays accurate which saves a lot of time. The light is true to all its specs, unlike some other companies with inflated numbers. Accessories are plentiful and mount easily (softboxes and umbrellas). The Norman softbox is a snap to use as it literally opens and closes like an umbrella - no assembly or disassembly needed). Be careful when checking out other products as they can lock you into purchasing only their accessories due to their configuration.

I see plenty of people going from AB->Elinchrom. Rarely, if ever, the other way. Just saying.

Thanks for all the replies guys. George, thanks for all the links, I will definitely check them out.

My budget... not exactly sure. I want to get 2-4 lights and hopefully not spend too much more than $500 a piece. It seems like Elinchrom has their mid range lights around that price (BX500Ri and BX250Ri).

I was originally thinking I wanted 4 (maybe 2x500 and 2x250) but I might try with just 2 for now and see how they work. Again, this is in the future about 6 months, not immediately so nothing is really set in stone.

I also want modifiers and such, I will prolly turn to eBay for these unless there is a really good reason to buy from the manufacturer of the lights. Some of the larger modifiers are extremely expensive (from my point of view anyways) like a large octobank and large stribox are both nearly $1k from Elinchrom! Prolly budget wise I want to keep the modifiers in total to under $1000. I will want some different softboxes and reflectors.

Perhaps one of Paul C Buffs reason for such success is the fact that he is pretty much a one stop shop. I will admit that have bought a lot of stuff from him. And for instance, careful shopping might very well lead a person to buy things like stands from someone else for a few dollars less. Again, do your homework and do some price comparisons. Having said all that, I am certainly happy with the PCB modifiers, stands and lights that I have.

Regarding the cost of the Eli modifiers....poke around on the threads I mentioned above and you will find references to other modifiers that you can use on Eli lights. There are almost endless possibilities on modifiers, and it seems like if you dig a little ways, you will find that someone, somewhere, has figured how to marry up this modifier with that light.

The affordability of the PCB stuff is what attracted me to them initially, especially all their modifiers and stuff, but after read (not just here, but other places) of color shift issues and slow flash duration issues, I am currently looking to other systems. It is possible I may never notice these issues, but though my numerous hobbies, the clear trend is buy once and buy well is better than upgrading all the time.

I dunno, I may end up going PCB stuff, I am not sure, we will see how everything goes 6 months down the line.