Having been a ‘keen amateur’ for many years I have the chance of some commercial work – product shots of furniture, audio installations etc and realise that some half decent studio lights would be pretty much essential.

So, requirements – a pair of or maybe 3no lights, portable, battery powered if possible, ideally the right side of £500 but £1k at a push. Happy to compromise on the battery power if needed but would be useful to have true portability.

Any decent brands, recommendations or other suggestions and areas I have not considered?

I believe Godox flash equipment is well regarded and not hideously priced. Gotta be som YouTube vids on the subject….

Yeah, I would be looking at Godox (or the same, under a different name).

I have used elinchrom rangers for the last 10 years, were a bit underpowered when using film but since digital haven’t needed much more and just hire in mains powered if I think I need more power on a job.
Probably a bit over budget but I need something reliable and to be able to hire if I travel. (Have taken the rangers on loads of jobs abroad with the correct airworthiness certificate for the batteries)

Thanks all. I should have thought of Godox- I have one of their flashes.

Will investigate 🙂

Godox is a good shout, but it’s not so much the lights, as the way you use them. For product photography, you’ll be wanting to minimise/accentuate reflections depending on subject, use light and shadow to create the feeling of depth, size, etc, and probably most importantly, to get the colour as accurate as possible. Nothing worse than getting a product only to find out the colour looks nothing like the pictures. Especially difficult given the range of different monitors/screens etc. So, with multiple lighting setups, it’s a good idea to have identical flash heads, or at least the same brand, to ensure consistency. Elinchrom, Profoto, Broncolor and Bowerns are all respected brands. I must admit I’m quite out of date with studio lighting though.

Another important aspect is control; will you use TTL flash control, or set everything up manually? Studio lighting is one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of photography, for me at least. Modern TTL systems take a lot of guesswork out of the equation, but some subjects will maybe require more complex arrangements than TTL will cater for. Old fashioned optical ‘slaves’ are still very useful for triggering flashes remotely. Your ‘£1k at a push’ is quickly going to become ‘at least £1k’, unless you want to only do very small subjects, which you can do quite easily with small, inexpensive flashguns.

After the lighting itself, there’s stuff like diffusers, reflectors, backgrounds etc. Things don’t have to cost a fortune; a cut up old plastic milk bottle makes an excellent flashgun bounce diffuser, saving £40+ over a commercial product. But much of it is trial and error; get precticising setups as soon as you can, then you can learn what you need to buy, rather than just buying a load of redundant/useless kit.

I wish you luck. No way I’d want to get into commercial studio photography now.

If you use canon give me a shout. I have a pair of high power yuongo or whatever flashes. Wireless remote and stands and white and silver brollies plus a 2x1m white/gold reflector/diffuser all pretty much unused because my new business went down last April. I’ll be back home soon and can give details. It will be cheap. Send a message.

Imo make yourself up 2x30m 13A good quality extension leads in orange from screw fix parts, £80 at a guess

Get Elinchrom BRX (d-lite will also be fine) kit second hand, usually come in sets of two with decent modifiers (Eli modifiers are the best until you go up to insane money)

Get some decent quality light stands and sandbags

Get professional liability insurance

Get the book ‘ light science and magic ‘

And go mains powered unless you really really really need battery. So much less faff (believe it or not)

TTL is pointless for non moving subjects when you will likely be shooting tethered to a laptop and adjusting lightning accordingly.
That’s where the remote triggers come in handy especially if you group the heads so that any that are hard to reach can be adjusted individually or all together.
Plus if working without an assistant you can use live view on the laptop to see any changes on set as you do them without having to go back and forth.

Thanks all – some really useful tips in all of this. I have a fair idea on what I am doing but hearing from others is invaluable.

@flannol – looks like there is a new edition of Light Science Magic just about to be released so pre-ordered from Amazon.

@bridges – thank you for the tip about lighting consistency in particular. Very useful. I do have proper colour calibration gear and a calibrated monitor but yes, for products in particular accuracy is important.

If only I had not lost my Sekonic 758 when out hiking 🙁 . That was a beast of a tool…

TTL is pointless for non moving subjects when you will likely be shooting tethered to a laptop and adjusting lightning accordingly.

I wouldn’t say it’s ‘pointless’, I’ve had some fantastic results with the Nikon iTTL system. It’s surely witchcraft. But for larger setups, you will probably want a more powerful system anyway. Using a flash head at 1/32 of its power, is much better than blasting a flashgun close to it’s max output, it’ll last a lot longer. The Nikon system will also trigger flashguns and heads remotely in other modes, A and M, so you wouldn’t necessarily be reliant on TTL control, although it’s only the most recent guns that offer wireless rather than optical/line of sight triggering. As mentioned, other wireless triggers are available, and surprisingly inexpensive.

If only I had not lost my Sekonic 758 when out hiking 🙁 . That was a beast of a tool…

Yes, the current L-858 is £700! I bet you cursed when you lost that! I had an older Sekonic spotmeter for a short while; got it ridiculously cheap second hand, but my cameras had perfectly good spot meters built in (Nikon F4 and F5), so the Sekonic became redundant. I did also use a L-308 in a studio, that was really good. Second hand versions are still pretty expensive though, last I looked.

A lot of kit you can easily get second hand. Flashguns and heads could be a bit of a lottery; you don’t know how hard they’ve been used. But stuff like stands, diffusers etc should be ok. What I will say though, is try not to let studio work consume you; it can be reasonable as a source of income, but so much of your time will be spent setting up and in post, so you’ll do a lot less actual photography. And you’re not going to be creating ‘art’; clients may be pleased with your results, but only as far as how well they show up their products. Your work probably won’t be lining the walls of über trendy galleries, attended by skinny androgynous young bohemians, and getting critical acclaim. And you’ll be spending a LOT of time sat in front of a computer screen. If that appeals to you, if that’s your kind of thing, then you’ll love it. I didn’t, and several studio photographers I’ve known, have fallen out of love with photography, as shooting in a studio is all they do. Keep several irons in the fire, is what I’m trying to say; go out on your off days and shoot people, plants, places. Keep your mind attuned to more than one type of thing. Hold on to your love of photography.

Your work probably won’t be lining the walls of über trendy galleries, attended by skinny androgynous young bohemians, and getting critical acclaim. And you’ll be spending a LOT of time sat in front of a computer screen. If that appeals to you, if that’s your kind of thing, then you’ll love it. I didn’t, and several studio photographers I’ve known, have fallen out of love with photography, as shooting in a studio is all they do. Keep several irons in the fire

At the moment this is going to be very much a side line and mainly to help out some people who have helped me out in the past but am hoping it’ll lead to some interesting gigs. These folk are connected to say the least and if it leads to other work great, if not then I am, if not monetarily, very much indebted to to them for work they have done for me.

I have done the odd wedding but find them a nightmare and again, to make a living from wedding photography is my idea of hell. If only trying to cut through the sharks putting upfront costs of like £!50 and then charging per photo and all that nonsense.

I will mainly be on location as well as opposed to cooped up in my own studio whilst people are working etc so I will at least have human company :). And I do astrophotography. Spending hours in front of a computer messing around with raw data is very much part of that hobby!!

to make a living from wedding photography is my idea of hell

Tried it once, went fine, but never again. Far, far too much stress. And I enjoy photographing people.

At the moment this is going to be very much a side line and mainly to help out some people who have helped me out in the past but am hoping it’ll lead to some interesting gigs. These folk are connected to say the least and if it leads to other work great, if not then I am, if not monetarily, very much indebted to to them for work they have done for me.

Photography isn’t anywhere near as lucrative as it once was, and even then it was a struggle to make a living, never mind anything else! I’ve had all the ‘oh this will definitely help you out, you should pick up some good jobs off the back of this’, but that rarely if ever bore true. You’ve got to really hustle for work, all the time, unless you’re on someone’s ‘books’, and even then people just aren’t making the money they once did. A combination of photography being much more ‘accessible’, and the raw image being somewhat devalued (Photoshop etc can make silk purses out of sows’ ears, it seems) has led to the profession having to take a dive. That’s life I suppose. I decided many years ago, that trying to pursue a professional career in photography wasn’t for me; I just wasn’t driven enough to do stuff that other people wanted (I’m still in love with photography though, and to me that’s the most important thing). Anyone who can make it stick, and make a living out of it these days, has my respect. So I really do wish you all the best.

I watch this guy on YouTube and he’s fantastic. Had a few videos on what you seek.

@bridges – it’ll never be a main job for me but the work I have been offered crosses over several of my hobbies, I will get to see work being carried out I would never otherwise get to see and meet people I would never otherwise get to me. And the people I will initially be doing some work for have already done some work for me so if it leads to other stuff – great, if not then it is a favour repaid :).

I will also get plenty of benefits in kind in terms of products so the money side doesn’t matter at all to me and equally it means I don’t *have* to do any gig I don’t want to as I will never be reliant on the cash.

Agree on weddings – too much hassle for too little return…

it’ll never be a main job for me but the work I have been offered crosses over several of my hobbies, I will get to see work being carried out I would never otherwise get to see and meet people I would never otherwise get to me. And the people I will initially be doing some work for have already done some work for me so if it leads to other stuff – great, if not then it is a favour repaid :).

Great stuff. My philosophy has always been to be able to take pictures other people will enjoy, and if I get paid now and then, that’s a bonus! I’ve had opportunities to go ‘pro’, but as I’ve said, I chose a different path and I’m more than happy with that. Meeting people, doing things, going to places you otherwise wouldn’t, is more reward than many get in life.

Meeting people, doing things, going to places you otherwise wouldn’t, is more reward than many get in life.

Even before doing the work I have met and chatted to some really interesting people – this is all around the pro audio fringes so studios, sound engineers, promotors, DJ’s and the like and I have always had a love for music so it’s been a fascinating journey.

I agree – I have never fancied any of my hobbies becoming my actual job. I love photography and this it just tying a few hobbies together for a bit but I would never quit my day job as I like to be able to just pick and choose what I do outside of work 🙂

I second Yokaiser’s recommendation of Sean Tucker’s YouTube channel. He also has a short series on product photography