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DPChallenge Forums >> Tips, Tricks, and Q&A >> Studio Lighting Question
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 01/19/2005 02:52:56 PM · #1
Before I begin, please excuse any ignorance, as I am new to this topic.

I'm currently looking into purchasing lighting for a small studio to take pictures of kids for family and friends. Hopefully it pans out to more.

I looked into the forums and see that alot of people like the Alien Bees. I also read some reviews online about JTL lighting and they got decent reviews.

My question is, what equipment is used to actually sync the flash? Is it a hot shoe adapter? or just the sync cords that come with the lights? I've also seen wireless solutions, but they are kind of expensive.

If anyone is has a lighting setup with the 300D Rebel, I would really like to know what type of equipment you use for this purpose.
 01/19/2005 03:29:50 PM · #2
Since the 300D doesn't have a sync port you'll need something like this Wein hotshoe adapter. I'm sure any number of mfgrs have them, this is just an example.

Kev
 01/19/2005 04:03:22 PM · #3
What do you do if you have 2 lights? Do you have to set one or both to slave?
 01/19/2005 04:06:19 PM · #4
I have been using a set of AlienBees (2 B-1600s,2 B-800s) for about a year now. In my opinion, they can't be beat for the money. I do a lot of location work, and my units take quite a bit of abuse. I have had a few problems with them but they were quickly repaired under warranty. I truly believe the problems only occurred due to all of the
moving from one location to another. BTW,AlienBees customer service department is awesome.

I have had no experience with JTL lighting, but I did own a JTL meter which was a
complete waste of money.

As to the hotshoe adapter, I purchased one off of Ebay for use on an older camera. As I remember. it was only about $10, but worked great.

Good Luck!!
 01/19/2005 04:17:45 PM · #5
One light would be triggered via a sync cord plugged into the hot shoe. Any additional lights would be set to slave. AlienBees also makes a wired remote (about $100) that gives you complete control of up to 4 units
 01/19/2005 04:18:25 PM · #6
Originally posted by Plexxoid:
What do you do if you have 2 lights? Do you have to set one or both to slave?


With monolights or flash head/powerpack units you generally cause one unit to flash via a wired connection or a wireless connection (transmitter on camera/receiver on flash unit) and the rest of the units fire because they have a light trigger. When the wired (or wirelessly controlled) unit goes off, the rest of the units follow suit. You have to be careful, too, as someone with a point and shoot camera can use their flash to trigger all your strobes except for the one thats wired (as plugging in the wire or wireless connector generally disengages the triggering mechanism).

Kev
 01/19/2005 07:27:14 PM · #7
Thanks to Kevin and Wayne for the info!!

I do see that Alien Bees have all that's needed for a complete setup and the price really isn't that bad. I'll just do some more research to make sure that I'm purchasing what I need for now.

BTW, are any of you guys using a wireless setup (radio or infrared)? If so, what equipment?
 01/20/2005 08:27:38 PM · #8
I just purchased 3 of these for my new Alien Bees. Use just one hot shoe trigger and a strobe trigger on each strobe and everything fires with no worries. I'm really impressed with these RF triggers as my IR trigger often didn't work properly depending on ambient light and distance from the strobes. These are awesome and I can even fire the strobes from a totally different room. I highly recommend these.

//cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=30079&item=3867522704&rd=1

One other benefit of using these with the Alien Bees is that because you are using the Sync port on the Alien Bee, other flashes will not trigger your strobes because the optical slaves will be disabled. :o)

Hope this helps some!

Thanks!
Bill

Message edited by author 2005-01-20 20:30:59.
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