How to choose lighting equipment for night shoots

[ice]

Hey Guys

I'm researching lighting/ flashes as i just received my fourth request to do a late afternoon/ night shoot. Since now i have always said no as i dont have the necessary lighting requirements for an on location night shoot, and i've never learnt a lot about it.

Now im researching, it all seems a bit confusing!

What are the minimum things i need in order to do a night shoot? I have looked into the Yongnuo flashes on ebay as they really fit into my budget- do i need an umbrella stand etc as well? Basically i need to know what equipment i need in order to be able to photograph a model in the late afternoon/ night time. I don't have that much money to spend on it, but i'd love to get started.

Any advice would be great, thank you! Even if you say you'll need a difuser umbrella, a flash, a strobe and a reflector etc. Just having trouble finding info on how to set it up and where and what i need for this type of shoot.

Thanks guys

Imogen

[kiwi]

a flash, a flash trigger or cable, a light stand and an umbrella

[ice]

Great, thanks Kiwi. Believe it or not, that's a lot of help. thankyou!

[kiwi]

Oh, I should add I'd go a reflective unbrella rather than a shoot thru

[jjphoto]

If this is a path you want to go down then I stronly suggest you borrow a kit (or buy a single set of strobe/brolly/stand or whatever) and try it before you spend too much money and find it doesn't work for you. You might be fine with a simple/weak strobe but you might find that it's no where near bright enough once you start diffusing it, especially if you are trying to over power daylight. Of course at night you probably won't need much power as long as you crank up the ISO on your camera, if the performance is accaptable to you.

JJ

[ice]

What do you guys think of this umbrella setup? http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270617954994&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

I dont want to spend too much- i did look into renting, but it's pretty much the same price as buying cheapies new on ebay.

This is the flash i'm looking to get too:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110540414545&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[glasseyes]

it looks ok from what it says in the specs, i would get a used canon 550 or 430 atleast you can trust it to work for a long time and if it breaks you can get it fixed. i use a 550ex 11 and its super handy compared to my old flash.

[JM Tran]

Oh, I should add I'd go a reflective unbrella rather than a shoot thru

Why is that Darren?

[Darey]

I think you would find a good light meter to be very useful.

Have a look at the following link but change the studio flash for a powerful off camera strobe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwISm7C6fiY

Good luck

[fess67]

I think there has been some good feedback here however I have a question. You state that you want to photograph the model in the late afternoon / night...which is it? each has very different light characteristics.

Read this:

here's the details of my camera settings and I never change it
- manual
- spot meter
- large fine jpg
- if i can shoot at 2.8 at all times (except for groups)

now with the photo with off cam flash (bride, bride and groom with clouds background):

- I meter my skies (excluding the sun, I only meter on the part where there is details on the clouds not pure white)
- I always set my shutter speed at - 250 because my d3 and d700's sync speed, then I just dial my f stop till the meter gets in the middle "0" so example its f13 at 250. then I will do a test shoot with out my flash just to see what the ambient looks like from my setting. obviously you will get a dark subject.
- I add flash and I always always start at 1/4 power manual, then adjust my flash output according to how bright or dark my foreground will be.
- I will never, never, never change my f stop to brighten the image when im using off camera. I will adjust my shutter for ambient light.

I hope this will help everyone in this forum as a starting guide to off cam flash... ... it took me awhile to get my workflow of shooting off cam did tons of research just to get it right .... but I cannot say that I mastered it, I am still learning. Im still trying to do more with off cam flash to get better photos especially on my wedding coverages.

maybe admin/moderators could create a off cam flash thread and start sharing and learning from there with everyone that has know how of off cam flash to share ....

So get out there and start shooting ...

<taken from a different forum>

Now go to this http://www.benyoung3.com/blog/
If I read you right, this is what you want to do. I know I would love to be able to be that skilled :)