Proud Photography Blog

There will come a time when natural lighting and your flashgun is not enough and you require more power and versatility.  You may want to invest in your own home studio lighting kit.  Here’s a guide to choosing your first set.

These days there are plenty of home studio sets, from unbranded kits costing around $250 to very powerful, multi flash unit sets that cost thousands.  You can work with quite a small budget but if you can stretch to more power and features, do.
Here are the first things to ask yourself:
1.    How much power do you need?
2.    What will you be shooting (small table top objects or larger ones?)
3.    What is your budget?
4.    What accessories do you think you want?
For your basic home set up you will want:

1.    Two heads (flash or tungsten)
2.    Sync Leads
3.    Stands for each head
4.    Power Leads
5.    Power pack (if applicable – some are plugged straight in)
6.    Two umbrellas or soft boxes to diffuse the light
7.    Backgrounds (can just be a white sheet or white paper on a roll).
8.    Protective case

Major brands to consider include Bowens and Elinchrome.  These are the brands that most professionals will use and you can find reasonable priced second hand kits on eBay and at photography stores by them, and you can also get basic entry level kits which will come with everything you need from these brands.

For the most affordable option look for non branded companies which product home studio kits.  Many of these are on sale on sites like eBay and they will clearly tell you what is included and the amount of power supplied.

The lights you buy will have different power ratings, like 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 and so on.  The more power you have the more expensive the lights are.  You can mix and match too although for an even effect you usually want two of the same wattage on either side.

Anything from 150-600 is suitable for home studio usage but as always, investing in something with more power will give you more flexibility in the future.  A lot of started kits will have two lights of different power, so you can use one to light the background and one to light the front.

The cheaper lights tend to be powered directly into the power socket whereas studio lights from higher end companies will have power packs.  Power packs are heavy and large units that generate lots of power (up to 6000 watts) and you can plug the heads directly into the packs.  They can be somewhat space consuming in the home.

Eventually you may choose to add more lights to your collection so you can evenly light the background and the subject.