Firstly, you must decide where you want to place your lighting equipment. Your exposure and even your equipment cost will depend on this decision. ?

Since you are just setting up your studio, going in for floor-based equipment would be cheaper. This means that your lights are supported on stands on the floor. This also means that there will be wires all over. So you need to be careful, or you may knock your lights down or trip over the wires. ?

If you have a home studio which is permanent, and if your budget permits it, you can have the railing system where lights are mounted on railings fixed to the ceiling. They can be moved and positioned as desired. In this case, you do not have to worry about tripping over wires and knocking down your lights. ?

You can use various types of lights such as sunlight, hot lights, cool lights, HMI lights or flashlights to get the desired effect. ?

Sunlight: If your studio has large windows, you can make use of the sunlight to illuminate your subjects. Direct sunlight produces sharp shadows and also makes the subject squint. Sunlight streaming through your window or through a curtain is softer than the sunlight you get in the open, and produces better pictures. ?

Hot lights: Hot lights are tungsten lights that are kept on continuously. Hot lights can be used with any type of camera and you can be sure of what kind of picture you are going to get; but the heat may make you sweat and create a stuffy environment. You may use soft boxes or umbrellas to diffuse and soften the light. A cooler alternative would be HMI (Hydrargyrum Medium-Arc Iodide) lights. HMI lights are more powerful than tungsten bulbs, but they do not generate the heat that tungsten lights generate. ?

Cold lights: Cold lights are similar to your camera flash, but they are much more powerful. Cold lights are of two types: Monolights and powerpack (pack and head) lights. The basic lighting apparatus in both is the same: A flash tube combined with an incandescent lamp. A monolight is a single strobe in which everything including the capacitor is contained in the same unit. A powerpack or generator pack has a heavy capacitor connected to multiple flash-heads by means of extension cords. The heads contain the flash tube, modeling lamp and sometimes a cooling fan. The use of powerpacks in studios is very common. ?

Since hot lights are on all the time you don?t need to worry about exposure; but strobes need to be told when to fire. You could use a sync cord or a wireless infra red trigger for this purpose. If your camera does not have an in-built light meter, a hand-held one can help you measure the amount of light falling on your subject. ?

The advantage of buying popular and branded equipment is that a wide range of accessories are easily available. Having the right type of lights will enable you to achieve the right exposure, set the mood and use your creativity to create magic with your camera.