Suggested flashes use with a Bowens Supersoft 600 and other use suggestions

[Uk_Photographer]

Hi,
I have just aquired a as new Bowens Supersoft 600 defuiser and yes I do have two Bowens Sunlight dishes as well. My questions are:
1. How much flash power is normaly used for full length and head shots. I do have Bowens Genini 200 heads and an Esprit 500 head, do I need more power?
2. Can I use an sb 800 in the back of it or would it be pushing it?
3. Do you have any tips for this bit of kit?

Thanks

 

[Phil V]

If you have 2 x 200 Ws flashes and a 500Ws flash why would you want to use an SB800 that’s barely 100Ws and has slower recycling and no modelling light?

With modern cameras, your 200Ws heads are plenty for portraiture in a studio environment, the 500Ws is more than enough.

I’m guessing from your question that you’ve bought these things and haven’t used them yet?

Back in the days of medium and large format photography using tiny apertures and slow film your 500Ws flash would have been seen as a bare minimum, but shooting digital at 400 ISO you’ve got more than enough power in the smaller 200’s.

Speedlights can be used inside modifiers, whilst accepting that you’re fighting physics. It’s like removing a lightbulb in your house, replacing it with a torch, then trying to mimic the original output with plastic domes etc.

Most modifiers are designed to modify the light coming from a bare flash tube (so it’s omnidirectional). A speedlight has a small flash tube that’s already focussed through a fresnel lens to provide a small focussed beam of light. You’re setting yourself an added challenge.

So in short you ‘can’ use a speedlight instead of a studio head, but why add to the problem?