Working Smarter: Light Weight Lights
Available Light
by Ken Bennett, Wake Forest University Photographer
Not long ago, carrying lights on location meant dragging large cases full of big studio strobes, heavy-duty light stands, modifiers, soft boxes, and hundreds of feet of extension cords. Most publications demanded transparency film, often in medium format, and that required a lot of light.
New technology has reduced the need for heavy lights on location. We can shoot at higher ISO values and use faster sync speeds, making small strobes usable in a wide variety of situations indoors and out. Taking advantage of this change, I recently put together a 4-light kit that fits comfortably inside a carry-on size rolling case. With this kit I can light portraits, events, classrooms, speakers, and even buildings, inside and out, and it’s small enough that I always have it in my car.
Kit Details
Case: I chose the Pelican 1514 case, a rolling plastic hard shell case that meets domestic carry-on requirements. This model comes with adjustable padded dividers.
Lights: I already had several Canon flash units, so I added a pair of 430 EX II speedlights. That gives me a total of six speedlights, four in the kit and two in my camera bag. All the lights have a Sto-Fen Omnibounce attached.
Stands and Grip Equipment: Two of the Bogen/Manfrotto 6.5-foot compact light stands will fit inside the Pelican case. I also have two Bogen Justin Clamps, which will mount a speedlight almost anywhere, and four of the little flash feet that came with the speedlights. To mount the flashes to the stands, I have two Lastolite TriFlash brackets, which can hold three speedlights and an umbrella.
Light Modifiers: Two Westcott 43-inch compact umbrellas, one shoot thru and one silver reflective, easily fit in the case. I also have several Honl modifiers, including three snoots, two grids, four barn door/flags, and four Velcro straps to attach the modifiers to my strobes. I find I use the short snoots most often. A large set of color correction gels and several sheets of black foil fit against the side walls of the case.
Off Camera Sync: The speedlights are all used in manual power mode. I started with the Canon ST-E2 wireless transmitter, which works using infrared signals. That unit functions most of the time indoors, but it doesn’t work well outside, or with flash units in different rooms. Now I am using the new Pocket Wizard TTL system, with a single TT1 transmitter and five TT5 transceivers. This lets me use all six speedlights, with one in the transmitter on top of the camera for on-axis fill light if desired.
Using the Kit
Most of the time I use these strobes in conjunction with the ambient light. I’ll set up a main light in an umbrella and use window light or daylight as fill or backlight. Sometimes I’ll set up a second strobe as a hair light or separation light, using a snoot, or rake it across the background to provide interesting light behind the subject. Three speedlights can shoot through one umbrella using the TriFlash adapter, providing more power to sync with the sun, or faster recycle times.
On larger shoots, I use the speedlights as accent or background lights, augmenting my bigger battery-powered Normans or my studio strobes. The speedlights are easily clamped to a bookshelf, a drop ceiling, or a chair, and hidden out of sight.
Limitations
The primary limitation is power. Speedlights are great when used close to the subject, or indoors in controlled situations, but they don’t push a lot of light through a large umbrella or softbox. Shooting outdoors using multiple lights in big boxes or far from the subject requires more powerful lights.
The 6.5-foot light stands are fairly short, and work well only when used close to the subject. Many situations require taller stands.
The Pocket Wizard TTL units had a tough introduction. They are currently available only for Canon flash, and radio frequency interference put out by the professional 580 EX II makes that unit almost unusable. However, the PW units work perfectly with the 430 EX II flashes, and recent firmware updates made the system much less flaky. When Pocket Wizard releases their remote power unit, I’ll be able to set manual power or TTL exposure compensation at each flash unit directly from the camera.
Available Light
Before I put this kit together, the Normans were my primary location lighting set. They fit nicely in a large rolling case, but their size and weight kept me from carrying them all the time. The speedlight kit is small enough that it can live in my car, easily available for every assignment. All the components are quick to assemble and put away, easy to use, controllable, and provide a nice quality of light.
Putting Together Your Own Kit
The kit can be put together from scratch for about $2000. Speedlights are the most expensive single item, but most photographers already own several. Using the new Radio Popper JrX radio slaves will save several hundred dollars, though they are limited to manual flash control only, not TTL. Nikon shooters can save even more by using the built-in CLS system, which gets good reviews and is usable in TTL mode as well as manual.
This speedlight kit won’t replace more powerful strobes for everything, but it has proven to be incredibly useful for many of the assignments I shoot.
Editor’s note: Printed with permission from the University Photographers Association of America’s quarterly journal, The Contact Sheet.
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