Best studio flashes kit cheaper than the others for FE2

[chef_IBK]

Hi there my 1st post is kinda lowbudget oriented....and where to buy and above all, what to buy
thx
chef

 

[bdial]

If you need to be low budget, get hot lights instead of strobes. They are easier to find in good shape second-hand, easier to fix, and you don't need any additional bits like sync cords and flash meters to work with them.

 

[Ian Grant]

In some ways I disagree with the above, preferring to muse flash units. (Strobes mean a flash in the US, a strobe is a rapidly pulsating flash in the UK/Europe & rest of the world except US and while they can be used for photography aren't very practical).

Cheap flash heads are available from a variety of sources, Bowens, Interfit, Powerflash are 3 companies in the UK.With flash it is easier to get good sharp results, while tungsten or halogen lamps require slower shutter speeds & wider apertures and for Colour work correction filters which again reduce the effective film speed.

I use all three, tungsten lamps, halogen lamps and flash, but far prefer to use studio flash.

Ian

 

[Lee L]

You might want to state more clearly where you are: Innsbruck?

Studio flash equipment availability is a factor in recommendations. A few brands have international distribution, others, especially some of the common less expensive brands in the US, are not.

Lee

 

[nemo999]

In some ways I disagree with the above, preferring to muse flash units. (Strobes mean a flash in the US, a strobe is a rapidly pulsating flash in the UK/Europe & rest of the world except US and while they can be used for photography aren't very practical).

Cheap flash heads are available from a variety of sources, Bowens, Interfit, Powerflash are 3 companies in the UK.With flash it is easier to get good sharp results, while tungsten or halogen lamps require slower shutter speeds & wider apertures and for Colour work correction filters which again reduce the effective film speed.

I use all three, tungsten lamps, halogen lamps and flash, but far prefer to use studio flash.

Ian

The OP wants low-cost suggestions! With flash heads of around 400 ws complete with stand, reflector and softbox/umbrella costing £250 and up, continuous lighting of the kind sold in DIY supermarkets with halogen bulbs is incomparabaly cheaper at £12 to 15 or so. These are hellishly hot and need to be fired through a cloth diffuser to be at all usable photographically (and you need to take care not to set the diffuser on fire, and use an 85B converter filter), but if this is done the results can be first class and very professional-looking. It works for movie-makers on location, it can work for you too! Do not whatever you do buy low-power flash heads - after a softbox has eaten at least one stop of power, these heads are of very little use.

 

[2F/2F]

I suggest old used Normans or some other decent brand from a local source. They are dirt cheap, and probably will work well enough until you get something better.

There are a billion different no-name brands which would work fine as well, and I have used these with success, although I find them horribly cheesy and they seem likely to bust at any second. I personally prefer the old, well used (and abused) Norman 500W setup to one of my boss' new no-name flashes. However, your mileage may vary.

You can also get by with speedlights or potato mashers. Sunpaks or Viv 285s and some imagination. The Sunpak 383 is as cheap as dirt on the used market (and new). Same with mid-level stands. Use your imagination and ingenuity to make reflectors (AKA bounce umbrellas) and diffusers (AKA shoot-through umbrellas or softboxes). At work, the basic product lighting tent that I "built" cost all of eight dollars and some change (on top of the flash and stands, which they already had when I got there).

You can do it very cheaply. You just need to understand some lighting basics, and then go ahead and run with it.

I would suggest *not* buying anything right away. I'd read a lot about what is out there, and do several months of research of the used market for the products in which you are interested. It will keep you from regretting your decision.

 

[chef_IBK]

Yes im in Innsbruck....

So I keep posting here and there to find out..

Thx 2f/2f thats what im trying to do like research research without end..

 

[nemo999]

Another idea - the cheapest way to get a studio strobe setup is to buy name-brand flash heads that don't work and fix them yourself if you are able, or else give them to a skilled friend to fix. Used strobes are notoriously unreliable, strobes that have lain unused for long periods are if anything worse than ones that have been heavily used. If you buy any second-hand strobes, buy them cheap - they are SURE to break down (but can be fixed with relatively inexpensive generic components, i.e. a condenser is a condenser is a condenser, no matter what the name on the flash head).

 

[Struan Gray]

The safety dweeb in me wants to point out that flash capacitors can seriously stun the unwary. Even my little shoe-mount model made my arm go numb for a few hours when I didn't let it discharge fully before mucking about with a soldering iron. Caveat mendor.

If you are really on a tight budget the hammerhead flashes with guide numbers in the 35-45 range (iso 100, distance in meters) are cheap and plentiful on the used market, and the more modern ones will even give you ttl operation with suitable cameras - or at least auto operation with a built in photocell. You can use several together for more power and rig battery packs for faster recyling or more shots.

Otherwise, for two-three hundred euros you should be able to find a single good used monolight of around 400-500 Ws. Or a new entry level light from a premium manufacturer like the Elinchrom D-lite series. Or a "Studiopaket" made up of a couple of low power strobes from one of the many generic cheaper brands. The problem with used flash units is provenence: unless you know the seller personally you have no idea how much they have used and/or abused the system.

A lot of people justly recommend the Alien Bee units from the USA, but I can't be bothered with using a transformer: models powerful enough to run a strobe without complaint are not exactly portable.

If you want battery operation the only cheap options are to run a monolight off a UPS or rig your own battery and converter; but this gets expensive fast if you go above 400 Ws or so. Used Lumedyne or Quantum units from, say, KEH in the USA are a great bang-for-the-buck, but there is little local support and the cheapie softboxes and other light modifiers you can find in Europe won't fit without modification. There are also a couple of generic companies selling small monolights which will work off a dedicated power pack or the mains AC voltage, (see here and here, but they may be marketed under different names in Austria) but they are quite a bit more expensive than a simple monolight, and they are so new that I have not been able to find any reviews at all, much less technically competent ones that compare them to more conventional strobes.

FWIW, unless a Profoto AcuteB drops into my lap for pennies, I'm probably going for the Elinchrom D-lites.

 

[chef_IBK]

thanks a lot Struan it was an excellent rewiev...