Quote (Eek @ 5 Oct 2011 07:05)
Autopoles can be a great space saver.
They have their plus and minuses. Power output is certainly one of them. A typical high end flash (580EX II) for example has a output of roughly 56w/s. Even a cheap B800 dwarfs it at 320w/s. To shoot studio work at ISO100, sometimes the hotshoe flash just doesn't cut it, be it the power output or the recycle time, yes i know that those can be offset by multiple flashes or external battery pack but it's really a bigger hassle IMO.
Alot of high fashion photographers that i have spoke with tend to shoot at ISO100 f/11 to f/13ish to retain details in the dress. A quick meter of my 580EXII at full power from ~6 feet around net me a reading of f/16 on my L358. Stopping it down to half power will reduce the recycle time but it's still very long compared to my einsteins or B800s.
Another downside is that it's harder to use bigger modifiers on speedlights compared to monolights or heads, try finding a speedring or heck even balancing a 74" Octa on 3 speedlights.
I guess i'm partial to monolights since i've grown so accustomed to it and can't imagine using speedlights unless i need to pack very very light. So i may very well be biased.
Depends what you're doing. I would rather use 2 monolights from a farther distance and using gobos and flags to fill in the voids.
Yes it does, shit gets hot. Was playing with a westcott spiderlite setup at another photog's studio, it does give out good light, but the output is weak! Good for infant photography tho.
Not with a colorchecker passport ^^. But in all seriousness, the bulbs are all temperature balanced (assuming you have ambient under control).
On that budget, i would get couple off bees from paul c buff and get some fotodiox box off eeebay/ amazon. Good quality softboxes for cheap.
wow this was a monster post, what makes it worse i have just woken up and am still dopey eye'd
obv if you are a pro fashion photog then you have to use studio strobes
be none of us are, and i dont believe cmajor made this post for that intention
speedlights > strobes in all other photography