gear for events and portraits

[hikerobby]

hey I'm kind of confused on speedlights flashes strobes and the lingo.......
so I'll just say what I want:
1) I want to do portaits sometimes indoors, but also outdoors and places without power.
2) I want to use my cameras at dark music events. I've seen a photog who has a circular flash on a cord and she raises it above her head to her left and walks around shows and takes pics of people so they can buy them off her website.... I wana do that too.

So, I know strobes are more powerful, but cheap strobes are not. I want to keep this under $200..... also since I want to take this outside for portraits would I be best with an umbrella and speedlight? Or strobes and battery pack?

I currently have a Nikon SB-400, which can bounce off ceiling but doesn't swivel to bounce off a wall. But if I bought a $68 cord I could aim it whereever.... Or I could return the sb400 for something else

So yeah, what would you folks recommend?

[OsmosisStudios]

$200 won't cut it. Straight up.

[mattjordan]

If you want to do portraits indoor take a look at the nissin di866 and grab a flip flash bracket. The Di866 is super powerful and tons of feature, I love the one I have. If you hold the flash over your head how do you adjust zoom or other setting with just one hand?

[carl yeomans]

$200 "WILL" cut it. Straight up.

Light Stand Umbrella Flash Mount set £27.99

YN-460 Flash Speedlight £32.49

RF602 Flash Trigger £22.00

GRAND TOTAL £82.84

82.84 British pounds = 132.87536 U.S. dollars

That will get you started.

Ignore snobbish gear heads who only buy branded stuff , they need to impress
with there gear because the pics dont cut it.

[Jim Bryant]

Originally Posted by carl yeomans

$200 "WILL" cut it. Straight up.

Light Stand Umbrella Flash Mount set £27.99

YN-460 Flash Speedlight £32.49

RF602 Flash Trigger £22.00

GRAND TOTAL £82.84

82.84 British pounds = 132.87536 U.S. dollars

That will get you started.

Ignore snobbish gear heads who only buy branded stuff , they need to impress
with there gear because the pics dont cut it.

Depends on what type of a quality job you want to produce. I find that using brand name equipment is more reliable than the cheapo's, but I understand you have to start somewhere.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by carl yeomans

Ignore snobbish gear heads who only buy branded stuff , they need to impress
with there gear because the pics dont cut it.

Name brand and quality tend to go hand in hand: I prefer quality, regardless of brand. Get off your high horse.

[hikerobby]

Be nice kids. No name calling.

Ok so you're recommending speedlights over strobes....

I'm not a professional, just want to offer the indoor or outdoor portraits to friends and see what happens. And I really want to have an ultra portable setup for music events and travel like that photog i mentioned with her circular flash on a cord.... shes a professional and her images look great I just dont know what she uses. I would be using my prime lens so I dont need the other hand to focus.

I'd heard mention of the Yunaguo gear, I'll check it out. My $200 limit included returning my current nikon sb-400 so if I did that its really $330 total. I do like the sb400 its very light and recharges in one second--I understand it cant be adjusted on the light only in the camera..... not sure how important that is, i always just adjust it in the camera, its easy. I have my D-40 bc its light, and i travel 4 months a year in asia, if I got a huge fancy speedlight, it defeats the purpose of a light camera. And holding a light up to one side w a diffuser is a lightweight trick for nicer photos while traveling. Ain't taking a umbrella to india.

But if I get the Yunaguo light and trigger and a $30 umbrella set for $130 and keep my sb400 and get a cord for it, I'd be set for cheap.

I was curious if ya'll thought ditching the sb400 would be a important. I could have two lights w the sb400 and yunaguo Or if I got the yunago and cheap umberella set and then traded my sb400 for whatever circular thing she had, dont know what it was??? Or just get cheap umbrella and not yunago light AND trade my sb400 for a quality speedlight or portable beauty dish or something...... hmmmm

anywho, thanks folks

[Niresangwa]

If you're going to get the RF-602 triggers (and I heartily recommend them) get the Tx and 2 Rx set, that way you can trigger both speedlights wirelessly and give yourself more options with crosslighting and rimlighting. For the sake of an extra few bucks, do it.

If you can find he extra $30 go for the YN-560, which is way more powerful, recycles faster and is very well built... easily comparable to both my Metz and the Pentax speedlights, (infact reviews have found them to be just as powerful as name brand flashes,at a fraction of the price).. the older generation 4** series are little more flimsy (though theyve served me very very well). The othr consideration is that if you're shooting through a modifer like a shoot-through umbrella or a beauty dish you're going to lose a stop or more depending on what you're doing, so more power is your friend...the 4** series flashes won't help you out much there (do you really want to have to shoot at 1/1 power on long recycle times and go through batteries like bad seafood?). Tests have shown the YN560 can keep up at least 5fps firing at 1/2 or 1/4.

The only downside is that you're going to have adjust your speedlight power manually with the RF602 set up, but if youre playing with multiple lights you ought to know what youre doing in that regard also. it's not that hard.

The ring flash you're describing that the other photographer uses sounds like an Orbis Ring Flash attachment, which is just an inert modifier. They go for about $200...

...timely as I just picked up one this morning with the bracket to use instead of a boomed beauty dish. Cant help you with the brolly and lightstand portion, as I don't use them.

While I can't exactly go against the advice of Os and Jim, I can tell you that I've not had any trouble with any of the Y-series speedlights nor the RF triggers and for the little money I spent on them, if they crapped out tomorrow, I wouldnt feel like I was ripped off or regret my decision to go budget with my strobist equipment, and have been really happy with the results.

[hikerobby]

thanks thats good advice, a lil nicer than the cheapest, but you've found it to be good. I'll probably go for something like that:-)

I'll keep my sb400 cuz its so small and I'll travel with it and leave the triggers and yn560 at home

[inkista]

Just a note. The SB-400 is an i-TTL only flash. You don't have manual control over the power, which means if you take it off-camera, it will only fire at full-power. It's also relatively low-powered. If you like it for the size and convenience, then keep it as a travel flash, but most of us would probably prefer a full-sized speedlight with tilt and swivel capability, because, on-camera, we like to bounce. And it's not that much more equipment to haul around to do off-camera with it, too.

Yes, you can get started with $200, but. You'll have to go full manual. No easy i-TTL setting the flash power for you the way the SB-400 does. In a studio situation or typical Strobist-on-location setup, where you can shoot, adjust and retake, this isn't a big deal. However, with event shooting, where you have to run'n'gun in varying lighting situations and the ability to retake a shot may not be coming around ... then having the OEM equipment that's i-TTL capable (or at least an i-TTL capable YN flash) might actually be worth it. For some folks, the additional features that OEM equipment offers, such as remote commanding, high-speed synch, and iTTL are worth the extra money.

Typically those who diss iTTL are a) not event shooters, and b) couldn't afford the OEM equipment anyway. While you want to discount some of the advice of my-brand-or-death equipment snobs who just want to show off how much they can afford, you ALSO want to discount some of the advice of the sour-grapers with nothing to spend. Where you are on the spectrum, and which advice is more relevant to your situation is up to you.

My instincts are more with OS: for a first speedlight, an OEM is not a bad way to go, since it will be equally useful both on and off camera. If you go the manual-only cheapie route, then you've got a great off-camera set-up, but a not-so-great on-camera one. That woman who's roaming with a circular flash? She may be cabled up with a TTL-capable sync cord (hotshoe-to-hotshoe) and letting iTTL do the power level adjustments for her. If you get a YN-560, you can't do that. You get a YN-465/7/8, you can, but you'll have less power.

Figure out what features you want depending on what and how you want to shoot. You gotta do the homework, and figure out what you're willing to pay for.