Light Power

A friend of mine called me today. He's a gaffer... a lighting guy. He's just getting into glamour photography and wants to buy some strobes. This is a guy who has just about every professional, motion picture, hot-light known to man (and plenty of each) plus a 5-ton, fully-loaded, grip truck and now he wants strobes.

Anyway, he's looking at a bunch of different monolights and he asked about power, as in wattage, make that watt-secs. Apparently, he came across a decent deal on some off-brand strobes but he's concerned they're not powerful enough. He said they're 500 watt-secs. I said that's plenty. But he keeps thinking he needs more power, like 800 watt-secs or more. I asked him what for? I continued by telling him if he's going to shoot glamour girls, he'll be keeping those lights in close. "You don't want hard lighting on the girls, do you?" I asked. "Not for glamour," I added. "At least, not generally."

He said he didn't and I said okay and added he'll want soft light and to get soft light he'll need to keep the light in close, probably bouncing off an umbrella or shooting through a softbox. After all, when you move the light further away (which does take more power) it will also cause harsh shadows, "So what do you need more power for?" I asked. (Power which, BTW, was going to cost a lot more money.)

He began to see my point. In fact, he told me he can almost purchase two of the 500 watt-sec monolights for the cost of one 800 watt-sec. "No brainer!" I said. "You need at least two monolights."

Then we got to talking about other characteristics I might look for in a monolight and, just as I told him, I'll share here my short, personal list of important characteristics for monolights to be used in glamour photography: Durability, recycle time, how well the light maintains color temperatures at the lower output settings, and the ability to variably adjust the power output. Oh, and a modeling light too! Preferably, one that "tracks" with the power output setting.

I also told him I'm quite happy, power-output-wise and everything else, with my Novatron M-300s and M-500s which are 300 and 500 watt-secs respectively at their high settings and less than half at the lower settings. Each of them, by the way, allow me to "switch" and/or "dial" variable output settings.

The model accompanying this post is Riley. I shot her last week at a location where I shot a few other pretty girls I posted here. MUA was Melissa. Assistant Reno. Captured with a Canon 5D w/28-135 IS USM, ISO 100, f/5.6 @ 125th. Here's another of the lovely Riley below.