Here's the situation....

I'm looking for a real lighting set up. I'm looking for the following....

No more then 2 lights
light stands
umbrella and or softbox
portable power would be a plus...not 100% necessary yet.
Possible transmitters/receivers to my camera

Current equipment
Nikon D50 (hopefully getting replaced soon)
Nikon SB-800
other lenses....

Looking to use them mainly for studio type of work and on location wedding/event shots. Yeah i know the D50 has to go, but i can't afford that yet. I usually rent a D300 or a D90 for big events and SB-900.


I was looking at different alien bees packages, but not sure if you are "paying for the name" or if they just are that good.

Would i need a pocket wizard or radio poppers to send the signals? or can i use my SB-800 to be the master and fire the other as slaves?

Any help or input would be appreciated...

Thanks.

Forgot to add a budget. I want to stay between 400-500 if possible.

BastaTag wrote:
I was looking at different alien bees packages, but not sure if you are "paying for the name" or if they just are that good.

Alien Bees are affordable and will work well for what you want to do.

As for paying for a name, try looking at Profoto, Bronocolor, Rimelight and others and then see if the price of alien bees are that high.

Alien bees will give you the flexibility to do what you want and alow you to add other modifyers and lights as you need them. They are light weight, and ok for durability.

With the budget you have, I think portible power is out of the question, but in the future you could look at the Vegabond II.

To get set up well you may want to increase your budget a bit and get everything you need.

Should i stick with 1 light for now until i get use to that, then get another light when i'm ready?

If increasing your budget is not possible then start with one light (AlienBees is my recommendation) and make good use of reflectors or V-cards as your "second light" until you can afford another one. I think this is better than purchasing two lower end lights just to have two as they will likely be low power and you will want to soon dump them for what you really wanted in the first place. I recently produced an instructional video that demonstrates 7 different one light setups (and 9 others with 2 and 3 lights) and I feel the results turned out really good with just one light s and good use of reflectors. I have tried to live by the advice of buy quality now and add quantity later. I has served me well for cameras and lens as well as lighting equipment.

I hope this helps.

John
www.photographydvds.com

Last summer I found a used Lumedyne 067 with a 400w/s booster with two heads. I got this set up for less than $500. It's battery powered, you can take it anywhere and it goes up to 800w/s. The good thing about a lumedyne set up is they are built like a tank (look like one too) they are very serviceable. You can build a system like an erector set and add on as the $ are available. They are very pricey new but you can find deals on used units.