Which is better, the flash or the studio?

There must be some confusion in the early stage of lamp selection. I don't know how many watts of flashing lights and shed lights to choose, or just buy a continuous light; Or, in fact, external flash can also play a very good role?

In the early stage of choosing lamps, people will be confused. They don't know how many watts of flashing lights and shed lights to choose, or just buy a continuous light. Or, in fact, external flash can also play a very good role? Look at the professional photographer, there are several lamps beside him, searching for information from the Internet, saying everything, and having no real shooting experience, each shed lamp seems to be a good lamp that can be used for himself. The external flashlights of C and N are also advocates of different schools. Which side should we listen to? Let Mark tell his own story and lead a bright road ~

Mark's experience in lamp selection.

When he started his studio, Mark bought two 300-watt, two 600-watt flashing shed lights and two 400-watt continuous light boxes. I thought I would use the 400-watt light box most often, because it is continuous light, what you see is what you get, and the output is enough. Should it be enough for me to use in general soft lighting? But a year later, I sold these two light boxes, because during this period, I used them zero times; Moreover, in the end, it almost closed at a price lower than 60% of the original price?

Later, I learned that this thing is often used in video recording, but when taking pictures, because of the aperture shutter, the chance of using it is really small; On the contrary, at first, I felt that the least used 600-watt shed lamp was the group of lamps that stayed the longest. To tell the truth, Mark made his decision after listening to many opinions, which is just like looking for knowledge on the Internet. He got a lot of wealth, but he had no direction, so he bought them all later, wasting some money and time. As far as Mark's suggestion is concerned, I think before you decide to buy, you should first look at what you want to shoot, the size of the studio, and the aperture value you can use freely, and then buy lamps according to your technology.

Having said that, let's first introduce the lamps you have the opportunity to use in the studio, and then talk about the lamps suitable for your working environment.

When taking pictures outdoors, the best mobility is the flash, especially when guards come to arrest people at any time. The flash allows us to quickly press the shutter in one fell swoop, and everything will flash when ok.

External set-top box flash

Well, you read it right. It is really an external set-top box flash, which is the first flash device that everyone will buy-an external flash. In fact, flash is not as weak as most people think. There are different opinions on the internet. Some people say that the output of the flash lamp is equivalent to a 50-watt flash lamp, while others say that it is a 100-watt flash lamp. Some people even say that the contribution of N is less than that of C, so buying C is the gain ... really a lot. Mark, like everyone else, saw too much and was dazzled, but he believed it all; However, after on-site personal testing, I found that it is good to read these sentences!

Well, the output of the flash is about several watts, and Mark has a test chart to prove it. Under the illumination distance of one meter, Mark used the exposure meter to test the results and found a 200-watt shed lamp with lampshade and full output zoom, which used a wide-angle flash, but the output was similar. The output of a Nikon SB900 is actually similar to that of Canon's 580EX, as we can all see from the above picture.

Of course, after this test, Mark was also very surprised by the output of flash! However, after such great efforts, the callback speed of the external flash is very slow, or even get twice the result with half the effort. If you want to cope with the general professional photo work, you will definitely not be able to catch up with the camera shooting speed; And after playing dozens of cards, that flash will burn to death.

As far as my personal experience is concerned, I think the best working environment of flash is a quarter output, which is about 50 watts, but this is not a good output value for small aperture shooting in the studio; If you add a transparent umbrella or a soft mask, its output will be reduced. Therefore, for the shooting work in the studio, unless you want to use the maximum aperture with the minimum output lamp (because the output of the general shed lamp will not be smaller than the flash lamp), it is not recommended to use the flash lamp as the main light source in the shed.

If it is in outdoor shooting environment, the mobility of flash is a very good lighting tool, but the choice of lamp holder equipment is not as much as that of shed lamp; However, with the efforts of equipment manufacturers, there are more and more high-quality flash lamp holders on the market at present, and it is expected that more and more convenient lamp holders will be used in the future.