The Best Lighting Kits for Professional Headshot Photography

Headshot Photography is a common and well-known photography field, ranging from corporate business to fashion and beauty. Successful headshots need to be of the highest quality and offer a professional result for your client to represent themselves with in the professional world. Keep reading for some tips on creating professional headshots along with some recommendations for kits to help you achieve this! 

Setting Up The Shot/Posing

1. To achieve high-quality headshot photography, you first need to make sure that the subject is positioned and set-up properly. Make sure they have correct posture, with their back straight and their shoulders pushed back to open up the body to the camera and prevent slouching in the image.
2. For headshots, the main focus of the image is the subjects face, so you need to make sure that the subject has their head positioned correctly. To achieve this, have your subject slightly lower their chin whilst pushing their face forward. This helps to expose the face to the camera whilst reducing the size of the neck in the shot.
3. Finally, you need to make sure that the subject looks natural during the photo being taken. Most subjects will instantly begin to pose as soon as the camera is pointed towards them, leaving their pose looking forced and uncomfortable once you finally take the shot. Make sure that your lighting and camera is set-up and ready before having your subject pose, to keep a natural style and end result to your photography.

See Similar Blog: Tips for Shooting High Quality Headshots

Equipment

It's always recommended to use flash lighting rather than continuous lighting when it comes to photography to achieve the best possible result. The recommended power output of the lighting will depend on what other equipment is being used in the set-up.

For instance, if you have a single light set-up without any additional modifiers, we would recommend a high-powered output light source to make sure you receive ample light coverage. If you are using a multiple light set-up, you should be able to use a lower power output light as the additional lights will make sure the light spread is correct.

The use of modifiers such as Softboxes and Beauty Dishes are recommended to help create a soft and diffused lighting which will reduce harsh shadows, and ensure you have a clean and professional result in your images. If using a single light set-up and find you are unable to achieve the light coverage you want, add a reflector to help bounce the light in the desired angle. 

See Similar: 3 Ways To Light the Perfect Head Shot - with Tommy Reynolds

Lighting Kits for Headshots

LUMI II 400 Clamshell Lighting Kit

The LUMI II 400 Clamshell Lighting Kit is an ideal entry-level lighting kit for

Headshot Photography. Clamshell lighting is commonly used in beauty and headshot photography to produce a soft, glowing and flattering light effect which is comprised of a light source above the client pointing down, and a second light source or a reflector to shine or bounce light under their chin to reduce shadows.

The LUMI400 is a mains powered 400w daylight balanced strobe lighting unit, featuring a 6-Stop Power Range (1/1 – 1/32) and fast recycle times and flash durations. This helps to make it the ideal lighting set-up for a single-light headshot kit. 

The LUMI400 is used as a main light positioned central to the client, above the eye line of the subject but our of sight of your camera with the 2-in-1 Boom Stand. The 95cm Octagonal Softbox helps to create a soft light source by using two layers of diffusion to help the light fall softer on the person's skin and accentuate the details in the subject’s face.

As this kit only includes a single flash unit a 5-in-1 Reflector board is included to place underneath your client's face to then bounce the light from the single light source up under the chin, removing any unwanted shadows.

PIKA200 PRO Commercial Headshot Kit

This kit is another single-light Headshot Photography kit aiming for the clamshell effect, but with a few differences compared to the previous kit. The PIKA200 Pro or AD200 Pro is a 200w battery powered strobe, making this kit ideal for traveling between different locations for Headshots. The PIKA200 PRO offers a 9-Stop Power Range (1/1 - 1/256) for a wide range of adjustments to better suit each shots requirement and a Stable-Colour Mode for 5600K ± 100K over the entire power range to make sure that colours in your images are captured perfectly.

This light is the main light used in this kit, which is meant to be placed directly in-line with the subject but above the eye-line of the subject. Included with this kit is

a 105cm Rice Bowl Softbox, which helps to soften the light to make it fall more gently on the subject’s skin. The round shape of the Softbox helps to create a gentler light fall-off and helps to create a round catch light.

This Softbox also comes with a removable deflector dish to remove hotspots, allowing it to be used as a Beauty Dish without the diffuser for when a shoot requires a more contrasting light source. This kit includes the curved reflector to help bounce the light upwards, allowing for a better overall spread of light to create a better finished product. The Curved Reflector’s shape is based on the curvature of the Human eye, and produces flattering curved catchlights, to add a little extra sparkle to the eyes of your client.

See Similar: How to Take Corporate Headshots - With Jon Segui

Finally, this particular kit features a collapsible black/white background to finish off the clean look of this complete kit. This background is the ideal piece of equipment for location photography, as it can be folded down to approximately 1/3^rd of its size to help with transportation and storage. All you would then need is a trigger to get shooting! 

PIKA200 Pro Headshot Three-Head Portable Kit

This kit is different compared to the two previous kits, as it includes three light

sources rather than one, to offer a different style of lighting which provides full, flattering lighting coverage. This particular kit features three PIKA200 Pro Strobes rather than a single light set-up, negating the need for a reflector to bounce the light, as the three lights would offer ample coverage on your client.

This kit includes three 30x90cm strip softboxes to help diffuse and soften the light being produced by each PIKA unit. These softboxes not only come with two layers of diffusion, but include a honeycomb grid to help reduce any unwanted light spill and to better help angle the light towards your client.

David Lee Photography - Model: Bonnie Morgan

For this particular set-up, it is recommended to have one light placed below the face, angled upwards, and have the other two light sources placed to off-centre to face inwards to them. This layout reduces any unwanted shadows and offers ample light coverage.

Conclusion

For Headshot Photography, making sure that your client is properly set-up and posed and that your lighting equipment is perfect for the job is a must. Use these kit recommendations and tips to help you create professional, clean headshots that your clients can proudly share! 

For more information or product recommendations, contact our team at info@essentialphoto.co.uk.