Good studio lights?

Pepsi35

Pepsi35

New member
Hey guys,

I wanna get more into lighting, studio flashes especially. Ive checked out adorama.com and they refered me to Photoflex Starflash models. What do you think of them?
Also, Im using an Canon XT and have no PC connection and know there are some hot shoe-to-PC adapters out there. Any of them you recommend as well?
And if its not too much to ask, Can you explain to me the terminology and uses of slaves, optical slaves, safe voltages, and etc.
Thanks a lot
 
Pepsi, you are correct that you will need a PC connection to run most studio lights. There's a cheap adapter that you can buy in most camera stores that sits on the hot shoe and gives you a PC sync. Depending on the strobe you get, Wein makes one that has a fuse in it to protect your camera. However, you only really need to worry about the voltages with older strobe units. Most of the new ones are calibrated to work with a digital.

Alienbees are good units for a decent price. You might also think about just buying a Canon 580 EX and a few 430 EX flashes. Their output is adjustable and they work wirelessly (an infrared signal if I'm not mistaken). Stick 'em on some light stands and voila...portable battery powered studio system.

A slave is basically a way to set off a flash remotely, without wires. Optical slaves trigger the flash when they sense another flash going off. Most monolights and powerpacks have them built in, but if you need more sensitive ones Wein makes the best ones that I know of. If you have room in the budget, a radio slave is the best way to go. Here's how it works. You have a transmitter that sits on your camera's hot shoe. There's a receiver that plugs into your powerpack or monolights. If you're using monolights, the ones that don't have the receiver will work off of their built-in optical slaves.

Hope that helps....
 
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