how many lighting watts for a small studio (1-door garage)?

[dede95064]

hello,

i'm about to purchase a lighting setup and had a few questions i was hoping you guys could help me out with.

i have a very small studio space (1 door garage) that i'm trying to light up. in using an 8x10 camera w/packard and shooting at apertures such as f8, f11, f16.

about how much light is needed to do head and shoulder shots given this small space?

i'm still unsure if i need continuous light or flash. if i use continuous lighting, is one 1K continuous head enough as the key light for these apertures?

i'm planning on doing a 3 light setup. 1 for key, 1 for hair and/or fill, and one for a background.

is one 150w tungsten enough for hair/fill? and i'm also thinking about a 150w dedolight for the background or hair. what do you think of this setup? do i have enough juice for the lighting? if not, how much more do i need?

would it be better to get flash strobes instead for more power as i don't want hot lights that are 2k and above.

sorry for all the questions and i hope you all can help me with some.

thanks for any help!

[Derek Lofgreen]

That's not going to be enough for short exposures. If you have a pc socket on your camera you can use off camera flashes as cheap strobes and play with those. If you have the cash get a alien bee light kit or something like that. Three speeedlights and some umbrellas will do better than the hot lights your talking about. There is lots of DIY lighting stuff here http://www.diyphotography.net/

Hope it helps.
D.

[dede95064]

ah ok. i see. it seems like strobes would be a better idea in this case then. the alienbees flashes are a good option.

but won't i only be able to obtain a max sync speed of 1/30th of a sec with a packard shutter? if that's the case, aren't hot lights just as effective for stopping motion???

[vdonovan]

I've been using a continuous flourescent softbox from Britex for portraits. I like it veeery much because a. I'm not so good with metering strobes, b. I use a really shallow focus plane and it's easier to see with continuous lights, c. they are not hot so subjects are comfortable, d. They're cheap.

I learned about them here:
http://www.studiolighting.net/contin...-pro-5000-kit/

Here's a sample portrait:

[CBG]

If you are doing portraits, strobe makes it a lot easier to get blur free images. With an 8x10, extra watt seconds of power can really help, since with 8x10 you will be likely to be extending the lens a bit and getting into some bellows extension exposure compensation.

C

[dede95064]

wow, vdonovan. that looks pretty neat! if it has enough power for my required shooting (f8-f16 at iso 25-160), then i'm sold!!! thanks!

[Frank Szabo]

Originally Posted by dede95064

ah ok. i see. it seems like strobes would be a better idea in this case then. the alienbees flashes are a good option.

but won't i only be able to obtain a max sync speed of 1/30th of a sec with a packard shutter? if that's the case, aren't hot lights just as effective for stopping motion???

If you get continuous lighting bright enough to stop motion, you'll be making the session extremely uncomfortable for your model/subject.

With the 'momentary' pin in place, the Packard acts just like a regular leaf shutter (albeit 1/15th - 1/30th) and fires the flash only when the shutter's blades are fully open. The flash duration then effectively becomes your shutter speed.

A bit of caution, however - the Packard has an extremely slow speed and will pick up modeling lamp leftovers. Even though you'll want the lights high for focusing, back them off before exposure - view cameras eat lots of light for us blind old humans to be able to bring them to focus.

If the wallet can stand it, check into a Speedotron 800w/s unit and heads, or for a little less expensive option, check out Novatron.

One last thing - if you do go with a flash rig of any sort, check the trigger voltage to make sure you'll not be overloading the camera's circuitry. While the LF's shutter is mechanical and can take anything you can throw at it, some cameras specifically say not to use a flash unit with a trigger voltage over 5 volts.

I occasionally use a Canon 30D instead of the non-available Polaroid film to check lighting and comp. My large power pack (4803 Speedotron) has 80 volts in the trigger circuit and this would fry the Canon. I use Pocket Wizards (a very good remote RF flash trigger) to get around that.

Enjoy -

Frank

[vet173]

vdonavon has the answer. Will the flash stop action better,yes. Will it give you the wrap around quality of continous lighting, no. A flash bulb will have better quality of light than a strobe. I didn't say a strobe was no good. ( can't, I have too much in a system myself ) More to it than just how many stops you can grab.

[vdonovan]

The Britek lights are color-adjusted flourescents, so they are not hot. My subjects are quite comfortable, even with the lights very close.

[jerry lebens]

Honestly, I think you'll struggle to get enough depth of field using continuous fluorescent (or tungsten lighting). To produce portraits you will need to diffuse your lights and the build up of heat from tungsten would be unbearable ; fluorescent would be better (and easier to diffuse) but I doubt that they'll give you the out and out power you need to work at f/11.

I'd guess that you'll need at least one 1000w/s of diffused flash. Most flash heads have modeling lights for focussing but, if the modeling lights aren't strong enough, you can always measure the focus point in advance and use a piece of knotted string to confirm that the model is the correct distance from the camera. Alternatively, some LF photographers used a 'charlie bar' - a horizontal bar, just out of sight of the camera. Focus on the bar in advance and ask the model to step forward so they can just feel it pressing against their chest. With enough dof either method will ensure that the model is in focus without having to do it visually in poor light. I'll leave you to guess why it was called a 'charlie bar'...

I don't know what the situation is in the US but in the UK it's actually quite cheap to buy the enormous 'overpowered' flash units that pro's used back in the days of LF because nobody wants them anymore. I recently bought a huge 5000w/s power pack with a 5 ft x 4 ft diffused light source for the equivalent of $400.

Regarding vet173's thoughts regarding quality of light. I disagree. The factors affecting the quality of light from a source are a) degree of diffusion b) size of source relative to subject. Continuous light doesn't wrap around 'more' than flash - if it did then continuous light wouldn't be obeying the laws of physics - it all depends on the degree of diffusion and the size of source relative to subject.
At a guess he may be confusing the slightly different quality you get between pearlised bulbs and electronic flash guns. Pearlised bulbs give a slightly softer effect to electronic flash guns because they're physically bigger than an un-diffused electronic flash tube. If you diffuse flash, therefore enlarging the size of the source, it has precisely the same qualities as a continuous pearlised bulb. Equally, if you remove the pearlised coating to a continuous bulb, making it relatively smaller, it looks the same as un-diffused flash.

Jerry Lebens