cgardner
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Shooting people doesn\'t automatically translate into needed a set studio lights. For example some very nice portraiture can be done outdoors or by the light of a north facing window with a reflector. To a great extent that is the light you will spend thousands of dollars on to duplicate with studio lighting in the basement or the spare room. 400 bucks for studio gear just dips a toe in the water of that pool So its a good idea to know how deep the water is before diving in. I\'ve got a primer on studio equipment which will give you an idea what I mean: LINK
For $400 it would be a stretch to buy a two-light kit with stands, modifers, etc. you\'d need to produce results as good as with the window, or outdoors with simple fill flash. The choices would be either to get one good studio light which wouldn\'t be outgrown and discarded, or try to duplicate the results of studio lighting on the cheap with hot shoe flash. Both paths are viable options with pros and cons.
The biggest downside of the studio path are cost and logistics. Studio gear is bottomless pit which creates a giant sucking action on your wallet. Realistically even with the bargain brands like Alien Bees, which I use, you are looking at several thousand dollars to equip a studio nicely to handle a range of tasks. That\'s not to say it can\'t be done for less, but the less spent the few lighting options are available. Logistics are another factor. Unless you have a space dedicated for a studio it takes quite a bit of time to set-up and break down the gear. Unless you invest in battery / inverter packs location shooting is limited to where your power cords can reach.
Hot shoe flash can do much of what studio lighting does, after all both are on the most basic level simply Xenon tubes that light up. For example, here\'s a comparison spur-of-the-moment portraits of kids of visitors who stopped by the house after a day of sight seeing, taken a few minutes apart. First I grabbed the camera which was on my flash bracket with a 580ex flash and my off camera 580ex I keep on a rolling stand, both with 9x12 inch foam diffuers. Set up time? About 30 seconds. Then I decided to take some other shots with the Alien Bees. Set-up time? About 5 mins. and that was with a dedicated studio space and the lights already set up. The results?
There are differences experienced eyes can spot right away, but both produce flattering lighting. The studio flashes offer a greater range of modifiers, modeling lights to guide placement, more power and faster recycling. Hot shoe flash can be modified in similar ways but lack modeling lights for placement. They are less powerful, which can be a factor when large modifers are used, and recycle slower: but logistically they are far more convenient and are a dual purpose tool for candid \"day in the life\" type of shooting and more formal studio-style posed portraits.
So the first question to ask is whether your wife wants to be limited to shooting in the basement or have a lighting solution she can carry anywhere in her shoulder camera bag. Eventually, if you want to do both tasks with the best results with the lowest level of aggravation she\'ll probably want both sets of tools. That\'s why I have both even though I don\'t shoot for hire. I shoot 90% of my photos with my pair of Canon flashes, but enjoy the convenience and additional options the studio lights provide when doing more formal posed work. If I had to choose one set of tools? It would be the one I\'d use the most, the hot shoe flash solution.
If you do decide to go down the hot shoe path, you\'ll find it has two distinct sub-paths: system flash and manual.
Canon and Nikon both make amazing flash systems which allow the user to use multiple flashes and simply dial in the desired light ratio from the Master flash, with the system automatically taking care of exposure as flash distances change. Having use manual flash for many years I consider the capabilities of these systems, once understood, to be nothing short of amazing in terms of convenience and performance. The ability to use wide apertures outdoors with fill flash is reason alone to buy them, and in fact that was the main reason I switched from manual flash to the Canon system. The Canon system can also operated in manual mode when that is more advantageous that TTL exposure control. They use coded optical pre-flash signals from the Master flash to instruct the slaves so there are limits with regard to range in extreme use situations, but in those situations its also possible to fire them with radio triggers.
The Strobist web site advocates the use of cheap manual flashes -- either units like Vivitar 285HVs or older Nikon flashes made obsolete by digital and available at bargain prices on eBay -- controlled with radio triggers. Depending on the radio triggers you select and the number of flashes you use that \"cheap flash\" approach can wind up costing far more than the system flashes while offering less versatility, especially in dynamic situations where automatic control of exposure via camera metering is a better tool. Granted, radio triggering is more reliable than optical in extreme use situations, but it forces the use of manual only control. The intangible cost of going the radio control route is the lose of the convenience of wireless control of the flash units. So while the flash you hang up in the rafters at the hockey game might get triggered more reliably with a Pocket Wizard, it will be a bit more difficult to control its power compared to a Canon or Nikon system flash which provides finger-tip control of all lighting variables from the Master flash.
You can get your wife to were she wants to go many different ways, but for $400? Realistically you will not get very far of the entrance ramp. So to avoid wasting money on what later turn out to be poor equipment decisions plan on a long-term budget of at least $1,000 to $1,500 and plan a growth path. The thing to realize up front is that if you initially go the cheap manual/radio route it will limit you to manual only all the time and cost as much or more as you add more flashes because of the need to add a radio receiver for each flash. If start with one or more system flashes the initial cost may be higher, but as you add a second and third flash the fact the remote control is built-in levels the cost to on par or below the radio trigger approach while offering far more lighting options and the convenience of total remote control.
If you start with a system flash configuration its possible to also add radio triggers if extreme situations prevent the optical signaling from working. There\'s now a hybrid approach offered by a third-party product called \"Radiopoppers\" which cost $250 each but convert the optical signaling of the system flashes into radio and then back to optical. So I feel the best approach offering the most options over the long haul is to start with system flashes.
Like many people asking \"what should I buy for $XXX?\" you\'ve failed to tell us what gear you both already have and what experience she has using it. Usually most people already have one or more system flashes, and building on that can be the quickest and least expensive path.
Its not really necessary to have a ton of equipment to make flattering portraits, what having more equipment does is allow flattering portraits to be taken in more different ways. Starting with a single system flash lighting can be improved a great deal by simply raising it off the hot shoe with a bracket and adding a DIY diffuser you can make in 15 min. These where all taken with a single flash on a bracket with a simple DIY diffuser:
The first two were a case of using the sun as a second light source. The third was just a matter of knowing how to use a single flash effectively. If you click the WWW button and look in the Canon and Hot Shoe flash section and scan the tutorials you\'ll see examples of what can be done by adding a second or third hot-shoe flash. Many of the things I suggest defy conventional wisdom, but are based on trying just about everything else over 35 years and finding the most practical solutions for my non-professional needs 
Chuck
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