I ordered two canon 600 EX and I was wondering if these are sufficient for portrait work. I am barely getting used to it and starting. I got two umbrellas, stands and flash adapters. are these sufficient for studio work or should I go with strobes?
I'm not personally a fan of Speedlites for learning lighting because they don't have modeling lights. Not being able to see what you're doing makes it difficult for many people to visualize what's going on with their lighting patterns.
They are perfectly sufficient for most portrait work, though.
Make sure you use them in Manual and NOT ETTL if you're trying to learn portrait/studio lighting. ETTL is not the way to learn it. ETTL is best suited for on the go flash with changing lighting conditions.
The downside vs. studio lights are the lack of modeling lights for placement and slower recycle times. These aren't show stoppers, you'll just need to chimp and watch you pace of shooting.
A problem with umbrellas in a small room is they spill so much light off ceiling and walls that you may have trouble controlling direction. You should consider getting a pair of 24 x 24 softboxes at some point so you will have better control when needed.
cgardner wrote:
The downside vs. studio lights are the lack of modeling lights for placement and slower recycle times. These aren't show stoppers, you'll just need to chimp and watch you pace of shooting.
A problem with umbrellas in a small room is they spill so much light off ceiling and walls that you may have trouble controlling direction. You should consider getting a pair of 24 x 24 softboxes at some point so you will have better control when needed.
I am trying to decide whether I should keep the 600's or just return them and get studio lights.
skasol wrote:
I am trying to decide whether I should keep the 600's or just return them and get studio lights.
I also do have a soft box.
I have both. I use the speedlights on location 10x more than the studio lights because as a hobbyist I just don't have much demand for static studio portraits. The choice of which to use for me is logistics: I don't like to haul a lot of gear on location. I use one 580ex on a bracket for fill with another 580ex on a rolling stand. The studio gear stays set-up in the basement..
It's a bit of a chicken / egg dilemma. If you were to get studio lighting instead of speedlights, once you learn to use them you'll see a lot of situations on location shooting candids where you'll wish you had the ablity to control the ligting better with the speedlights.
If you only have the speedlights you'll also quickly realize two lights is limiting what you can do. Then you'll face the decision of buying a third or perphaps a fourth light. See this tutorilal of mine to understand what I mean: http://photo.nova.org/FourLightExercise/
So what I'd suggest based on my experience is to start with the speedlights then if you reach the point where you want to add that third or fourth Canon flash buy the studio lightis instead. For the cost of two 600EX-RTs you can buy four AB800. That way instead of having a marginal four speedlight studio set-up you'll have two sets of tools, one ideal for run-n-gun PJ style location shooting indoors and out, and another for more critical static situations — products, formal portraits.
I use RadioPoppers JRX system on my 580-II's, but don't know if they work iwth the 600's. works great, flashes in manual, trigger on camera controls both individually. Great to start with as I don't do much in the way of portraits, but more so outdoor fill flash scenarios.
The 600EX-RT have built-in radio triggering so you don't need any third party triggers. If you keep one in the hotshoe or attached to it via the OC-E3 cord to mount the on camera flash on a bracket (what I do with my Master 580ex).
If you want to remotely fire two flashes on stands you'll need to pick up a ST-E3-RT transmitter. It fits into the hotshoe and acts as a controller for the slave flashes.
