If you're dong available light work, you don't need anything. :-).
Next step is some battery powered flashes. Going on from there just figure out how much money you want to burn on the alter of the better lighting gods..
What sort of location stuff are you wanting to do? Single portraits, groups, sports teams, products? What you want to do makes a huge difference to what you need, funnily enough.. for e.g.:
I use a 580ex and a bunch of 420ex flashes with brollies/reflectors for single portraits or groups of 2-4 if it's a one off. And some old vivtar 285's I got of Ebay for some work, including lighting a light tent for on-site product photography.
For larger groups/small teams, or events where I'm doing lots of groups or individuals I use a set of monoblocks with softboxes or brollies as appropriate. (I do a few fundraiser events where I might do 20-30 portrait sittings in 8 hours)
Back when I was pretending to be a 'real' photographer I did some larger groups (100+ people) with a 3600WS pack/head flash with a huge softbox (borrowed from a friend who has more money then brains!). On full power it'd take the paint off a buick at 100ft, and gave me F/16 @ISO50 along a basketball court baseline from half way, with only 1/3rd stop falloff to the sides. (I was using a Mamiya 645AF & provia film in those days)
Cheers, Me. |
