Apr
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I would love to take my photography to the next level and want to get some experience with professional lighting techniques. What light types, umbrellas, etc are the most basic and important?
Basic – three lights, one fill, one key, one backilght – constants are good for this. Add 2 strobes and umbrellas also. Really depends on what you are shooting. The constants dont have to be expensive cheap 500w will do, get some blue gels and some diffusing cloth.
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5 Responses to “Pro Photographers: What lighting equiptment is most necessary to get serious with photography?”
99% of my shots use sunshine.
When doing portraits outside I definitely have reflectors. I do not like the look of using a flash to balance the contrast.
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Basic – three lights, one fill, one key, one backilght – constants are good for this. Add 2 strobes and umbrellas also. Really depends on what you are shooting. The constants dont have to be expensive cheap 500w will do, get some blue gels and some diffusing cloth.
a
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I use a Lowel Tota-light, umbrella and stand with a couple of reflectors for all my location "studio" photography.
There are some examples on my Model Mayhem link on my profile here.
In addition I have a Savage portable background stand I use to hang various coloured backgrounds from.
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Editorial, sports and glamour photographer
All you need to start and play around is a couple of those lights that you can buy at home depot with the clips and something to clip them on. Then you get some different color matte board and reflect light off of those onto your subject, check it out. You don’t need tons of money to be a great photographer. and you don’t have to buy all the fancy equipment. I have a fine art degree in photography and the only thing I spent a ton of money on was the camera, everything else I improvise, I mean if you have the money then go for what works, but you don’t have to do all that… Good Luck!
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Bachelor’s Degree in Fine ARt Photography
There are some great answers here. I say start with one key light and a large reflector for fill. Mastering lighting is best done with fewer sources, not more.
How portable do you want your set-up to be? You can’t get more portable than battery operated strobes but they won’t light up as much volume and don’t have as many easy modifiers as, say, a set of Alien Bees monolights.
What’s your budget? Plain tungsten hot-lights are dirt cheap but they sure throw serious heat. Their color temperature will not match sunlight or strobes without gels. On the other hand modeling the light is not just close, it is exactly what-you-see-is-what-you-get.
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