Questions about portrait studio setup

[Rikard]

Hi, as I wrote in another thread. I want to set up a small home studio for portraits. I have landed on godox product as they seem to offer a fairly affordable range. I will be shooting various rangefinder film cameras; leica m6, Mamyia 7ii and maybe some Instax on my Mint RF70. As I understand things these flashes/strobes need to be shot full manual and I will be using a lightmeter to measure flash output.

Here is my current list of supplies.
Parabolic Umbrella with diffuser : Parabolic Umbrella-Product-GODOX Photo Equipment Co.,Ltd.
Light stand: Light Stand-Product-GODOX Photo Equipment Co.,Ltd.
Speedlite Bracket: S2 Speedlite Bracket-Product-GODOX Photo Equipment Co.,Ltd.
Flash: TT520II/560II-Product-GODOX Photo Equipment Co.,Ltd.
Reflector: Reflective Discs-Product-GODOX Photo Equipment Co.,Ltd.

I do need some triggers. But I don't understand what to get. All the stuff I've found seem much to advanced for what I need. Basically just a sender mounted on hot shoe and a receiver mounted on the flash?

Please let me know your thoughts on this. I feel utterly confused 🙂

 

[Cascadilla]

Since you plan on shooting film you might want to consider more powerful AC powered flash units. When you start modifying your light source via umbrellas or soft boxes, the quantity of light will be considerably reduced. This will lead to longer recycling times for a battery powered flash and make it more difficult to capture fleeting expressions without getting underexposed results. It will also lead to less depth of field or require using faster film with its increased grain. Another factor to consider is the lack of modeling lights to anticipate what the effect of your lighting will be. Any of the AC powered flash units I am familiar with have modeling lights.

I haven't used any Godox equipment so I don't know how good it is. One thing I would urge you to look at closely is how sturdy the light stands are, and get some sandbags or other counterweights to make sure they don't topple over on your subject. A two year old running around my studio years ago convinced me on that one... As for radio triggers, there are many on the market and for limited home use the lower end ones should be adequate for a start since you probably won't be at a great distance from your lights and there isn't likely to be a lot of interference from other signals. Check all of the cameras you plan on using to make sure that the transmitter will work with them--many older cameras don't have hot shoes and may require a PC connection to fire a flash. Many transmitters on the market won't have a built in PC cord connection. You may only need one transmitter/receiver to start since many lights have built in optical receivers built in so that they will fire immediately after the first flash goes off. I would look for that feature on anything you are buying.

Before you buy a lot of equipment I would highly recommend that you read Light--Science and Magic, an excellent guide to lighting of all kinds. There are many useful suggestions in it for creating interesting lighting without spending thousands of dollars, and it is the clearest explanation of lighting for photography that I have come across. It is available in many editions used for not much money, and I wouldn't hesitate to get an early edition since the basic material remains the same. Good luck!

 

[GMOG]

Simple, and I have not broken them yet. Can be adapted to cameras that lack hot shoes with the cables that come with them. The Godox flash you have has a jack for connecting to a trigger.

PlusX Transceiver: Auto-Sensing Remote Trigger Radio | PocketWizard

The PlusX is the simplest PocketWizard radio ever. Match your Channels, connect your camera, connect your flash, and start taking pictures!

pocketwizard.com

 

[mdarnton]

Do not buy a strobe setup without modeling lights! You really need to see what the light is doing as you set it up. I use something like this, but when I bought mine they cost 3X what these do, from Amazon---

Godox MS300 300W Compact Studio Strobe Flash Light​

I'd buy at least two, with soft boxes (umbrellas if you insist but soft boxes are better--more control, more natural), and maybe something smaller and cheaper for little tasks you will figure out soon enough, like hair light and back lights. Yes you need stands, maybe sandbags, and some way to trigger, which also could be a 10-foot PC cord, possibly with a hot shoe adapter for some cameras. Don't forget background paper and a way to hang it.
That's essentially what I use for the portraits here: Michael Darnton

 

[Rikard]

Thank you for all the advice.
@Cascadilla That is excellent advice regarding modelling lights. I never taught about that. I figured I would fire a few shots with a digital camera to get the bearings. But a constant light would be much better. The one recommended by @mdarnton would be an option. Not too expensive. I was thinking I should go with umbrellas since they are a bit easier to fold up and stow away. Also more practical for travelling (if I ever do that). I think I could find some backgrounds and a way to hang them at IKEA. @GMOG thanks those triggers/receivers look great.

 

[spijker]

If you're sticking to Godox flashes/strobes, then I suggest that you also get a Godox trigger. Practically all the Godox speedlites/strobes already have a receiver built in so you only need to buy one trigger transmitter, no receivers as with the Pocketwizzards or other non-Godox tranceivers. Another advantage is that you can adjust the flash/strobe power settings from the trigger. Specially if you'll start using softboxes with the strobes high up on light stands, that's a big advantage. The Xpro triggers can be bought for various (digital) camera systems and can also be used on film cameras as a "dumb" non-TTL trigger. I have a Xpro-C(anon) trigger and I can use it with both the Canon digital camera and my Mamiya film camera. On the Canon camera, I get all the features such as ETTL metering, high speed sync etc. On the Mamiya, the camera only triggers the flashes. On both cameras, I can adjust the flash power remotely from the Xpro trigger. If your camera doesn't have a hotshoe, you can also use a cable between the Xpro trigger and the X flash contact on your camera or leaf shutter lens. Youtuber Rob Hall has a number of videos on the Godox flash system on his channel.

 

[Cascadilla]

Thank you for all the advice.
@Cascadilla That is excellent advice regarding modelling lights. I never taught about that. I figured I would fire a few shots with a digital camera to get the bearings. But a constant light would be much better. The one recommended by @mdarnton would be an option. Not too expensive. I was thinking I should go with umbrellas since they are a bit easier to fold up and stow away. Also more practical for travelling (if I ever do that). I think I could find some backgrounds and a way to hang them at IKEA. @GMOG thanks those triggers/receivers look great.

Umbrellas are certainly a good place to start--inexpensive, easy to set up/take down and don't require much space to store. They will be a vast improvement over the standard reflector for standard portrait lighting where softer lighting is called for. Umbrellas are also easily useable on almost any brand of studio flash, whereas soft boxes usually require a speed ring made specifically for a particular brand of flash. So if you switch brands down the road your umbrellas should still work with new equipment. If you do go the soft box route, try to make sure that the flash units are fan cooled. They will last a lot longer and you won't need to replace modeling lights as often.