Hi Photo Guy,
I’m interested in some basic lighting equipment to have some fun doing macro and portraits. What do you recommend?
I’ve heard some good things about https://www.fjwestcott.com/
Would their two or three light educational kits be a good starting point?
Thanks
Scott
Hello Scott,
Thank you for your question. I would be very cautious with use of monolights for macro photography. The working distances(distance from lens to subject) for macro photography is often between 4 to 10 inches. Making use of big monolight is problematic, and limits the flexibility. For Macro photography I’ve found an off-shoe flash to be far more useful, simply because it is far more portable and can be placed closer to the subject. This is where macro-flashes and ring flashes excel. Especially in flower photography, when you need to illuminate the inside of the flower bud. Because flashes can be placed closer to the subject, they often don’t need to be powerful.
Now as far as portraiture lighting goes, the opinions vary. Joe McNally, a well renowned photographer, only uses hot shoe flashes and has been doing amazing things with just that. For studio portraiture I use monolights.
If you are a just learning the lighting techniques you can check out a wonderful article Lighting 101 at Strobist.
I would also strongly recommend reading Joe McNally’s book The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes. Hot shoe flashes or monolights, the lighting techniques are practically the same. Before investing into the new monolights, I would recomend taking a look into modifiers, and made sure that you are currently getting all your Canon 430EXII has to offer. And it has a lot to offer.
As far as Westcott goes, I’m a big fan of their light modifiers. However, I have never used their Strobelite monolights. Purely looking at the specs/price/value. The price of their 241P kit seems very reasonable (less than $600). However, keep in mind that all items in the kit are part of their Basic line, and the monolights are only 150WS. For a small studio this is fine, but usually I would recommend at least 250WS. The modeling lamp on Strobelite monolight is only 100W. This is a little dim. Also these monolight only offer 1/4 power as the lowest setting (2 stops adjustment), while most competitors offer at least 1/32 power (5 stops adjustment). This is all I can say about Westcott Strobelite monolights.
For a budget studio, I would recommend AlienBees AB800s, however you will be looking at much higher cost of the studio.
Hope this was helpful to you.
– Photo Guy.
Hey Photo Guy
Which lens is better Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM Autofocus Lens or Canon Telephoto EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Autofocus Lens.
Thanks,
Ian
Well, to answer your question I’m going to need a bit more information from you. You see both lenses are great and excel at different things. Depending on what the purpose of this lens will be, you may also consider Canon 70-200mm f/4L (both IS and non-IS versions), which is almost half the weight of the 2.8 version, and is significantly more compact.If shallow depth of field, best image quality, compact size, great bokeh, and low price are important fixed 200mm lens is it. Price tag $769.
If you can compromise a bit on image quality and bokeh in favor of zoom to have greater choice of focal lengths (and therefore perspectives), then your choice will be between brighter 2.8 version and less bright 4.0 version of 70-200mm lens. The price tags are $1300 and $639 respectably.
Zooms usually better for news and sport photography, because of the convenience. Fixed focal length lens will be better for portraiture.
So for now this is it. But if you give me a better idea of how you plan the use the lens, I can try to provide more detailed response.
Looking forward to your reply.Sincerely,
– Photo Guy.