Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi Everyone,

I had bought my wife last Christmas a Nikon D5000 and the Beginner Bee package that came with a B400 light, umberella, and stand. I also bought a hot shoe to connect it to the B400 light. After some testing lately of trying to do some home portraits with our kids and family, it was obvious we needed more lighting.

I am not an expert (nor my wife) at all the technical workings or equipment as we are complete beginners, so any assistance to help describe what we need to do would be appreciated. If you wouldn't mind to bear with some of the questions, I know it would help us out greatly to get the right equipment. Here is what we would like to do in order to increase our lighting:

1) Ideally, we would like to add another light to balance out the other side of the face by getting another B400. By having only 1 light, we get a shadow on either side. Would I want to get another light with an umberalla or something like a soft box type instead?

2) We have been primarily working with a black background because we haven't been able to adequately light a white background. Are there any strobes offered here on Alien bees to light a white background. From what I read, we would need at least 2 strobes to light both sides evenly?

3) I was doing some reading about beauty dishes and saw the 22" one. Would it be beneficial for us to have one and use to concentrate more of the light to a subjects face or upper body? I heard that it can help make a difference on the pictures taken especially for upper body/face. Is this light a very bright white that is continuously on or does it flash too?

4) Currently, I have a hot shoe attached to her camera to fire the one b400. If we add another b400 and 2 strobes, I know I have one more plug to tie into the b400, but nothing for the strobes. My questions are:

a) Are the strobes a flash or are they just continueous light that just remain on?
b) Should we dump the hotshoe and get a Cybersynch trigger for the camera, and then get 2 receivers (probably with the cyber commander upgrade for later)? Go with batteries on these or direct ac? If the strobes are a flash type as well, do I need to get 2 more receivers for them too?

5) Does AlienBees have a light meter? One that is relatively affordable? I can't remember the setting, but I think the background is like 1.5 fstop higher than the subject? (did I get that right?)

I know this is a lot of questions. I just for some reason found this forum and we have had a ton of questions that we just couldn't find the right answers with the Alien Bee products. Any links when responding would be very beneficial so we can directly see what you may refer us to.

Thank you for your help. Steven

First, while not technically correct, "strobe" and "flash" are used interchangably in the photo community. Every light we sell is flash (a.k.a. "strobe").

The beauty dish is not a source of light, rather it is a light modifier that attaches to a light.

In a small studio environment, one light triggered by the camera (i.e. sync cord) will then trigger the remaining lights via the optical slave eye. Radio remotes, such as the CyberSync system is very nice to have. Again, only one transmitter for the camera and one reciever for one light is required. Additional receivers are only required if the optical system is unreliable, which is rare in a studio. If you decide to go with the Cyber Commander (which included a light meter, and the only light meter we sell), you will want a reciever for each light to maximize the benefit of the system. AC vs. battery recievers will more of a personal choice. Battery recievers will allow use with a broader range of lights (including speedlites), while AC powered recievers free you from more batteries.

The typical set up for a white back ground is 2 lights for the back ground. B400 units can do that fine, or you may wish to go with B800's to allow for higher settings on your main and fill B400's.

You imply you want to get rid of the shadow on the side opposite the 400 you have now by usign another light. Tyoically, you want to keep the shadow to give demension to the image, but you want to still see detail in that shadow area. Another light will do that, and it is typically used with a large modifier so that it does not create its own shadows. Large softbox, umbrella, or PLM will do nicely. As this is getting outside of technical and more into technique, our sales team will be more than happy to select a specific product for this aplication.