Light
This has been a long time problem of mine. When I was shooting 35 MM I was using a light kit that I bought for $150. Basically it was 2 stands with 200 watt bulbs. Then I upgraded to a home made light set up I made from some halogen lights I got off an old stat machine. I also had a 500 watt light that I would use for my main light or reflected light. This was giving me mixed results but I was able to squeak by because of the f-stops on my 35 mm. I was never going to get a way with that on 4 x 5 though. Once again my photographer friends come in handy. I was thinking of spending about $1000 on a flash kit. Speedo-matic has some entry level kits and so does Novatron. Knowing nothing about flash I was going crazy with the way the lights were rated, watt seconds. You have to be really careful here because even though each company rates their lights by watt seconds none of them uses the same method. Either that or they cheat. They'll take a meter reading at full power with no diffusion to get a better reading. I ended up going with a set up that one of my photographer friends was able to get used for me. Two Dyna-lite 500 watt second packs with three heads. My total light out put is 1000 watt seconds no matter what I do. The packs split the power among the flash heads. I use one pack for my main light and the other to light my background and sometimes a fill light. Remember I said I like dark moody pictures...
I am starting to get the feeling that all my photographer friends are using me to pawn off all their old equipment on though... I get good advice from them though and the equipment is in good shape and I do need it so I can't complain too much.
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