What kind of light to buy?

[justlearning]

I was thinking of purchasing a few lights so I could start learning more about lighting, mostly for portrait type of work.

Can anyone give me any suggestions as to where to start? I have been looking on the internet but there are hundreds of different companies with different kinds of lights. Is it better to use strobes, continous lighting, florescent, soft box, umbrella, etc. etc. etc.

Also, if anyone has any recommendations on what I will need to start, as far as how many or a specific kits that they purchased and liked or disliked it would be very appreciated.

Cost is a factor and these will mostly be used at home to learn with but I would like something decent that I could grow with and won't fall apart in a minute.

Thanks for your help.

[cphoniball]

I would start out with strobes. They're going to be the most portable and adaptable if you're just starting with lighting and really don't know what you want to shoot yet. Midwest photo has some good "starving student" packages, and strobist.blogspot.com has inhuman amounts of information about lighting available.

Have fun with it... and post things like this in the gear forum next time :P

[inkista]

Most of us, under the influence of the Strobist, start out with speedlights--the small hotshoe battery-powered flash units, mostly because a lot of us already had one sitting around, and because you can use it both on the camera shoe if you need to be mobile (e.g., wedding shooting) as well as off-camera for more versatile lighting set-ups.

They are small, light, and portable, which makes them convenient. But they are limited on output, and the high-end ones can often cost as much as plug-in studio lights. OTOH, you don't need a nearby outlet (or big battery pack). The low end ones, however, can make creating a multiple light setup cheaper than with studio strobes.

Strobes vs. continuous is general a matter of ease of visualization vs. power/heat output. A lot of strobes, however, include modelling lights, which are continuous lights to help you set up. Another continuous light source to consider are video lights.

In terms of light modifiers like softboxes, umbrellas, beauty dishes, snoots, grids, barn doors, and gobos, you need to learn what each one does. Basically each one helps you shape the light in a different way. Softboxes give you more control over spill and fall off; umbrellas are soft and diffuse and throw light everywhere, beauty dishes wrap the light around subjects, snoots and grids restrict the light, barn doors and gobos also restrict but on a single or choice of sides, rather than all sides. Gels help you modify the color of the light. The nice part about using tiny little speedlights is that you can DIY some of these modifiers out of cheapish materials like craft foam, cereal box cardboard, and gaffer's tape.

[justlearning]

Thanks you guys for all the information, I know I have a lot to learn and DPS is a such a great place to learn it. I guess I need to do some more research!