My Soon-to-be Studio Setup
Posted December 30th, 2006 @ 02:20am by Erik J. Barzeski
A day or two ago I put together my studio package. I still may have a few pieces left to go (including an upgrade from the Canon DR XT to the XTi), but the main parts are in place. They include:
- The DigiBee setup from Alien Bees. This includes two B400 strobes, two umbrellas, two 10' stands, the necessary cords, the bags, etc.
- One RFT1 transmitter and two receivers to radio-trigger the strobes.
- A set of four honeycomb grids to narrow the beam down.
- A Wein Hot Shoe to PC Sync adapter that will let me use an on-camera flash and still trigger remote strobes.
- A Canon 430ex Speedlite with a Gary Fong Lightsphere.
- A pair of 2GB 133x Lexar Professional CF cards. After the mail-in rebate ($55 each, two max), each will cost about $30.
All that remains is the knowledge, which will be gained in testing, and some miscellaneous supplies like some backdrops (local fabric store), a small table (Wal-Mart), and the like. If I can find an extra little side job in the next month or two, I'll see about finally getting the BG-E3 battery grip.
Total cost, after a little negotiating and some promises: relatively inexpensive. My Christmas money and a small side project (about 15 hours of work) will cover it all with room to spare.
Thanks for those who offered their help in response to this post.
Donate Life
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 11:50am #
Excellent choices =)
If you need really wide fabric, I recommend Rose Brand - they're a theatrical and display fabric supplier out of New York. They sell muslin up to 39 feet wide, but also a lot of more reasonable width fabrics - a good price point is the stuff around 120" wide.
Happy shooting!
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 1:04pm #
Happy shooting Erik.
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 1:36pm #
I just went to the BH Photo site to look at that and was greeted with a nasty "We arent taking orders right now" message. How can an e-commerce store be closed!? 🙂
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 1:43pm #
[quote comment="34965"]I just went to the BH Photo site to look at that and was greeted with a nasty "We arent taking orders right now" message. How can an e-commerce store be closed!? :-)[/quote]
They frequently have that message. They're very, very odd. From what I know, they're a brick-and-mortar that does a large portion of their business online. They may only have people packing up and shipping orders during business hours… but that still doesn't explain their ability to take orders. I wouldn't be surprised if they do it to avoid a tax thing or something.
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 2:36pm #
B&H is run by a very traditional NY Jewish family-- their website doesn't take orders during the Sabbath.
Why a server would need to follow those rules, I'm not sure, but that's how it works. (FYI, they don't take orders from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday).
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 3:58pm #
Good luck with everything, Erik. But I gotta tell ya, I have the Gary Fong sphere for my Nikon SB800 and I find the thing impossible to work with. It seems to weigh down the flash head, causing the head to constantly flop around on me.
I also don't think that there is much of a difference between the Fong dome and the diffuser that came with the flash.
Hey, but that's just my opinion.
Great deal on the strobes.
Posted 30 Dec 2006 at 4:21pm #
[quote comment="35003"]Good luck with everything, Erik. But I gotta tell ya, I have the Gary Fong sphere for my Nikon SB800 and I find the thing impossible to work with. It seems to weigh down the flash head, causing the head to constantly flop around on me.
I also don't think that there is much of a difference between the Fong dome and the diffuser that came with the flash.[/quote]
You'll have to take that up with the guy who heartily recommends it. He commented in the original post. 😉
Posted 31 Dec 2006 at 12:07pm #
[quote comment="35003"]But I gotta tell ya, I have the Gary Fong sphere for my Nikon SB800 and I find the thing impossible to work with. It seems to weigh down the flash head, causing the head to constantly flop around on me.
I also don't think that there is much of a difference between the Fong dome and the diffuser that came with the flash.[/quote]
I'm not sure what diffuser comes with the SB800, but I've got one of the more common flash diffusers with my Speedlite 420ex and I have to tell you there's significant difference in the results between it and the LightSphere. If you watch Fong's video on how to use the LightSphere he shows you how to position your flash for easiest usage. I've never had my flash "flop around", perhaps it's a difference between Nikon and Canon flashes.