Strobe Equipment
& Accessories
There is a huge amount
of professional lighting equipment out there today. You
can elect to use hot lights which
provide a continuous source of illumination. This is
sometimes a choice for newcomers with very limited
budgets. Photoflood lights are already color correct for
use with daylight film. Tungsten lights require a filter
to correct for the yellow/red color when used with
daylight film. You can also use tungsten balanced film
rather than the filter. This is desirable since you will
not be loosing a stop or more of light due to the filter.
Studio strobes are of course the light
source of choice for studio photography. There are a
number of different ways you can go. First there is the monolight.
These popular light sources provide a strobe
head and power pack all in one unit that sits on a light
stand. Monolights have some features that are good and
others that I am less fond of. On the plus side you can
avoid the wires commonly seen running from strobe heads
to a central power pack. Monolights can be moved anywhere
you desire as long as you have access to an AC outlet to
plug them into. Still on the plus side, if a mono light
fails, you can simply replace it with another monolight
that you keep as a spare.
On the negative side, I
feel that monolights should be used primarily on location
assignments where the distances between the various
lights may be greater than that of the studio setting.
Another concern with monolights is the need for each of
them to “see” the strobe flash of the others in
order to flash themselves. With the exception of the one
connected to the camera with a cable, the others must
fire after their sensor detects a burst of light energy
from the first monolight. Knowing that they all fired is
of some concern especially when some of the lights are
far from the one connected to the camera. Some companies
build in a feature that dims the modeling bulb
momentarily after an exposure has been made. This is a
good indicator that lets you know that they all fired
provided that you look around quick enough to notice that
they all dimmed! It is an issue that always give me a
degree of concern. Even so I still feel a preference
toward monolights for location work as opposed to a pack
setup.
Another reason that I do
not prefer mono lights in the camera room is something
that very few photographers ever take into account when
buying them. Because they have an entire power pack built
into the head, they are much heavier than individual
strobe heads connected to a power pack. The added weight
dictates the use of heavier and larger light stands for
added stability. You don’t want to place a $500.00
monolight on top of a lightweight stand that could be
easily knocked over. With this in mind a large stand is
in order. With the added stability of the larger stand
comes a larger foot print to take up space in your camera
room. A larger foot print means less walking around room
and more chances of tripping over a light stand leg. When
you knock over one of these with a monolight on it, you
just spent a lot of money. On location there is usually
more room to work and therefore less chance of tripping
on a light stand. Exceptions to this might include a
small living room where you just have to exorcise
additional caution when moving around.
For situations where
mono lights are a good choice, I use Novatron
M300’s. They have 300 watts of strobe power and
include a 150 watt modeling light. The M300’s are
compact well made, and set up quickly. Novatron has even
introduced a number of new monolight kits
that include hard cases which make them very portable. I
have done a technical evaluation on these units for
Novatron and found them to be excellent products. They
provide controls for adjusting the strobe output and the
modeling light as well. Their design is thoughtful and I
have had only positive experiences with them in the years
I have been using them.
Novatron is now
manufacturing on a new, more powerful monolight called
the M500. It is also a fine product with a very
conservative power rating of 500 watts and has a built in
cooling fan along with some very handy mounting options.
To locate a dealer in your area,
call Novatron at 1-888-468-9844.
I feel it's very
important to have a light kit that provides uniform
output with regard to the modeling lights as they relate
to the strobe output. This is necessary so that you can
get on film what you see with your eyes and avoid
excessive metering and guessing to determine the relative
brightness of the different lights. This goes for
monolights just as it does for a pack system with several
heads. I always recommend getting a lighting kit where
all of the flash units have identical power and
performance.
The other type of equipment commonly used today, and my
first choice for camera room work remains a power
pack with four flash heads. My
personal recommendation is Novatron. They have been
around for many years and remain a leader in simple to
operate, safe and affordable lighting equipment. Many
photographers feel that unless they purchase many
thousands of dollars worth of equipment from the larger
equipment companies seen at convention trades shows that
they will be unable to do great photography. This is just
not so. You can spend more money, but it won't make you a
better photographer. It is the photographer who creates
the lighting for the image, not the equipment. I can use
any brand of equipment that I choose and yet I remain
loyal to the same simple to operate equipment that has
served me for nearly two decades. My 230 plus trophies
and awards were earned using only Novatron. I have never
owned another brand. To this day, I still have my very
first Novatron 660 power pack and it still works just
fine. Novatron is an excellent choice for photographers
wishing to get into studio lighting. It is easy to build
a complete set of lights without spending a fortune. Once
the photographer has learned how to use them properly,
they will very likely never feel the need to change to
another type of lighting. I will say again that it is the
photographer and not the equipment who is responsible for
the creation of great images.
Each flash head houses a 100 watt screw in modeling bulb
with a very even illumination pattern that precisely
duplicates the pattern of the strobe output. The shiny
reflectors used on the heads today are far more efficient
than the textured ones of the past. This provides a
significant boost to the available light from the system.
The heads are available in several configurations. You
can get them with no reducing switches at all. This is
what I recommend for the main, fill, and hair lights. You
can get heads with reducing switches to reduce the output
of the strobe and modeling light by one f stop and you
can also get heads with the ability to reduce the output
of the head by both one and two f stops. The latter is my
choice for a background light. The reason is simple. When
you wish to maintain a certain size pattern of light on
your background you have to change the power of the light
rather than the position of the light. Changing the
position will of course change the size of the pattern.
Using a head with the minus one and minus two stop
reducing switches give you more options for controlling
the background brightness without changing the size of
the pattern.
The standard heads accept an array of accessories such as
grid spot adapters, gel holders, and my favorite
accessory, the 4 way barn door.
The heads
come with two available power cord lengths. I strongly
recommend getting all of your heads with the long cords.
The added length makes life a lot easier and changes the
price only a little.
Here is a list of the Novatron lighting equipment that I
use.
1 ea. D1500 Digital Power
Pack
3 ea. 2105-C Std 25' Flash Heads
1 ea. 2140-C 3-Way Flash Head
2 ea. 7045W 45" White Umbrellas
3 ea. 5010 10' Light Stands
1 ea. 5000 4' Back Light Stand
1 ea. MI-001 15' Sync Cord
1 ea. 4020-A Gel Holder
1 ea. 4021 Gel Kit (red, yellow, blue, green)
2 ea. 4011-A 4-Way Barn Doors
1 ea. 6801 Carrying Case
Because of an increasing
number of requests to purchase the same compliment of
equipment that I use as a kit, Novatron has the Scott
Smith Studio Kit (SK15D-4C). It comes with most of
what I use in the camera room. The diffusion panels I use
are right here on my web site. Click HERE.
Here is the
Scott Smith Studio Kit. Model number
SK15D-4C.
A smaller
starter kit I can recommend is the 61-V600-3C
It has much of what I recommend to get started with
including a medium capacity power pack and three heads.
Smaller still is the
60-V400-2C kit.
It has a
power pack that you can use 4 heads with but only
includes 2 heads to get you going and costs less than the
larger kits.
You may obtain a Novatron catalog by calling
1-888-468-9844.
If you would like to visit the Novatron web site, click: www.novatron.com
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