Portrait Lighting (mobile)
Tom Grason
some advice regrading the purchase of a good, portable set of lights. I
have a portable backgrounds etc, but need a set of lights. What do you
suggest?
I appreciate any comments.
The Frightened rretard
with stands, umbrellas, and multi-stop strobe heads. All in a hardcase that
isn't too big to fit into medium sized vehicle.
Calumet makes the "Travelite" series of monoblock lights which are a little
bit priceyer but will take more of a beating than the Novatron. They also
have a more variable control setting for power.
Elinchrom's monoblocks are a superior lighting system that are great for
studio and location work. They also offer a custom travel case that will
carry up to three heads and some accessories. I hope you have "thick bank"
because not only do thier strobes pack a powerful wallop, so do thier price.
They also offer much more control on the power end and offer a digital
remote that can control each lights' settings individually.
The Retard Speaks
Pat Jerina
--
pat jerina photography
214.893.0458 phone
214.696.1759 fax
http://www.patjerina.com
zeitgeist
door kiddie pix on a 20 minute schedule or a more fine art
approach of carriage trade portraiture? What is your market
plan or how do you envision working?
Alan Tutt
of photography you plan on doing.
Will you be doing large groups of people? This will require very
powerful lights whereas doing babies and individual portraits will
require much less light.
I am a fan of the White Lightning series, although the Photogenics are
attractive as well. Both companies sell monolights, although Photogenic
also has cabled systems as well. I think the monolights are easier to
take on a location shoot.
General recommendations you probably already have in your personal
library of photo books. A main light, fill light (or reflector), an
accent light (a Morris AC slave unit works great here!), and possibly a
background light. Sounds like you don't have a lot of experience doing
portraits, so I would suggest spending as little as possible at first
until you build your momentum. Get a monolight unit (for main light), a
couple of 24"x36" pieces of stiff cardboard or foam from an artist's
shop (cover it with foil for reflectors), and call it good. You can use
one reflector for a fill and another for a hair/accent light. Play with
these until you have a good feel for the qualities of light you want in
your photos. Your own eye for the results is a much better guide to
what you need than anyone else's suggestions. Just make sure to keep
fully detailed notes as to how everything was set for each and every
shot.
-Alan Tutt
Tom Grason
grow these skills. I plan to shoot individual portraits not large groups
(like weddings etc..). My intent is to have a portable studio so I can
conduct a shoot at a client's house instead of having them go to a 'brick
and mortar' studio thereby giving them flexibility.
I appreciate all the responses and am getting educated through your
comments to this questions and your responses to others.
Alan Tutt <al...@ionline.com> wrote in article
<386CC0E0...@ionline.com>...
Victor Panlilio
> As you suspected, I am not an experienced portrait photographer but want to
> grow these skills. I plan to shoot individual portraits not large groups
> (like weddings etc..). My intent is to have a portable studio so I can
> conduct a shoot at a client's house instead of having them go to a 'brick
> and mortar' studio thereby giving them flexibility.
I work mostly on location in people's homes. I usually bring a Dynalite 500
watt-second powerpack with 3 heads, but I often use only two heads. My usual
key light is a 24x36 inch Chimera softbox and the fill is a 42-inch bounce
umbrella. I almost never use a hairlight (the third head, with a honeycomb
grid) on location, but I might use it as a background separation light. I also
don't usually bring backdrops, I tend to use the home itself as a setting
(environmental portraiture) since my clients' home interiors tend to be quite
attractive. At full power with ISO 160 film, I usually get a composite reading
of f/11 from the two heads, for groups of up to five or six. I also try to
balance ambient and flash illumination to "warm up the scene" and avoid
getting a dark-looking home interior. I try to keep my lighting as simple as
possible so that setup/teardown is quick -- a sitting usually lasts an hour,
including location prep work.
A more flexible alternative to the Dynalite powerpack/head combo is a kit
comprised of two or more Dynalite Uni400jr monolights, with JackRabbit battery
packs for on-location use outdoors (substitute the Uni250jr if you need less
power and will use AC-only sources).
A downside of the Dynalite system: accessory mounting (e.g. speed rings) can
be awkward. Profoto has a much better system, but it is also a lot more
expensive. I don't have experience with other makes, others can comment on
those.
Before I had my Dynalite kit I used two Vivitar 283's with manual power
controls, running off a single Quantum 1 battery pack!
Hope this helps.
Victor
sdfd
anywhere but it is damn expensive. It is however really smooth and reliable
and as it has been mentioned the head design is fabulous. Also flash
duration is extremely short, as opposed to the Lumedyne which can have 1/80
sec duration at full power (the Profoto has 1/1400 at full power)
>
Pat Jerina
From the other systems that I have worked with, (Speedotron, Novabomb,
Norman, White Lightning, Broncolor, Profoto) Dyna's are some of the easiest
to put on light adapter and one of the most sturdiest. I agree, the
Profotos do rock, but they are quite pricey.
If you want the finite details about the other systems, let me know.
>
> A downside of the Dynalite system: accessory mounting (e.g. speed rings) can
> be awkward. Profoto has a much better system, but it is also a lot more
> expensive. I don't have experience with other makes, others can comment on
> those.
pat jerina photography
214.893.0458 phone
214.696.1758 fax
http://www.patjerina.com
zeitgeist
basically it was high volume work, was the Norman 202 and/or
the whole 450 series. The pack bolts to the middle of the
light stand and supports two heads. It built around the
umbrella, but these days you could use a halo, which opens
like an umbrella but has a white translucent shoot through
so it's like a shallow softbox. So you could do glamour
light with a hair light, key and fill etc. When it is taken
down the head unlocks and folds down, the umbrella is
collapsed, the pack has a handle to carry it nicely
balanced.
For more quality work you may want or need much more power
to do creative things like set up big soft boxes and have
enough power to balance light streaming in from the
windows.
What is weird is, if you have pricey enough clients you may
not even need a studio flash as just about every upper crust
client lives in a well designed house with wonderful natural
lighting or has beautiful landscapped grounds and all you
might need is a fill light.
Tom Grason wrote:
>
> As you suspected, I am not an experienced portrait photographer but want to
> grow these skills. I plan to shoot individual portraits not large groups
> (like weddings etc..). My intent is to have a portable studio so I can
> conduct a shoot at a client's house instead of having them go to a 'brick
> and mortar' studio thereby giving them flexibility.
>