LIGHTING HELP!!! FLASH TO CONTINUOUS

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Dwayne
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Hey!

I know this probably comes up a lot but I cant seem to find the right thread!

I currently use a flash light with a large Parabolic reflective umbrella with diffuser for most of my work but Im looking to move into continuous. I already have some of the cheap rectangular softbox and lights from ebay but I want something REALLY bright that will rival the flash l use. Any suggestions?? Ideally something affordable and that will fit in my umbrella.

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NOTHING continuous will rival flash for brightness (power), but as a rough guide, which may help...
With flash, we express power as joules or Watt/Seconds, with continuous, we express it as watts.
A 100Watt LED light is extremely efficient, and we can say that it produces about as much light as a 800 - 1000 watt filament light, so let's call it 900 watts. What this means, in terms of real power is that it will produce as much light during a ONE SECOND exposure as a 900Ws flash will produce in the tiny fraction of a second that it takes to flash.

So, if you have say a 300Ws studio flash, at any given aperture/ISO setting you will need a 1/3rd second exposure with your equivalent 900 watt light to match the output of your flash, and whilst that may be OK for still life subjects provided that you have a really good tripod, it isn't ideal for live subjects.

If you want to use it with umbrellas, many continuous lights are OK. But if you want to use it with softboxes or any other modifiers, you need something that has a standard accessory mount, the most popular of which is S-fit
 
The only thing I'll add to @garry's answer is that if you're shooting people, then staring into bright hot lights is no fun at all.

What were you hoping to gain? Maybe there's other options.
 
Agree with the above. Use continuous lights for video, or other applications where you have no choice, but for stills photography flash wins pretty much every time. Just on brightness, I have an 80cm softbox with four huge 105w fluorescent bulbs. It's one of the brightest you can get at sensible money. At 1.0m with ISO100, it measures EV10, which converts to 1/125sec at f/5.6 with ISO400. Just about enough for solo portraits and couples, but not much else. For comparison, bright daylight measures EV15 (Sunny 16 rule), which is 32x brighter.

I'd also add that you wouldn't want anything as bright as sunlight, even it it was available, at least not indoors. It would be absolutely blindingly, uncomfortably bright. Even the lights I have take a while to get used to when you're sitting in front of them. Flash is so fast you hardly notice it. Video works differently, constantly collecting light, so works better at lower levels.

Edit: be aware that tungsten or tungsten-halogen lights get extremely hot, uncomfortable to work with from either side of the camera, and can inflict serious burns.
 
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juggler said:
Redhead lights tend to be cheaper than the equivalent high power LEDs and tend to have a nicer spectrum than the cheaper LEDs. Too hot to fit conventional flash modifiers, though.

Why do you need constant lights?
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True. But they are also far less energy efficient, because about 2/3rds of the energy ends up as heat, not light.
 
A 2.5k Briese HMI witha 140 reflector will give you similar, or better, results, and is definitely enough for stills - and indeed is used on a lot of fashion shoots. They re, however, not cheao - that setup is about £350 a day to rent. Beautiful light though.


I can't really think of a way of doing it cheap I'm afraid.
 
simonbarker said:
Having a hard time trying to word this without sound like a sarcastic git but if the op wants good results cheaply that's what flash is for...
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Well yes, but a lot of people assume that continuous lighting is a good choice, possibly because it 'looks' easy, possibly because of the WYSIWYG effect, and possibly because there are some dirt cheap options on EBay...

We can't blame people for that, and even if they do spend a few grand on pro continuous lighting, they will still find out the hard way that although good talent can cope with blindingly bright light, poor Mrs Brown is going struggle with it
 
I've got a pair of old 500w Tungsten bulb heads - just on or off as the only control!
They were free (along with a bunch of other stuff that someone I knew had been given, then had never used, so I ended up with them).
Never used them for photo lighting, but a couple of times have been doing some DIY type jobs in the back garden, and needed to carry on after sunset - stick them 2m up on a reasonable pair of light stands, with just a standard reflector on, and they make a great pair of floodlights :D
 
Try hiring some for a day or two just to see if you actually like working with continuous lighting. I dabbled with it a few years back and couldn't stand them. I find flash much more versatile. That said, everyone is different, hence why I suggested try hiring some.
 
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