Which equipment best suits your Industry?
As most photographers know, not every shoot is the same. There are many different reasons for photography, ranging from capturing a bride and groom on their special day to capturing wild animals in their natural habitat. In this Blog, we take an in-depth look into many different photography fields and help inform you as to which equipment would be best for this particular photography.
Events & Wedding
There are many different shots that need to be taken at events such as weddings, from the Bride taking her first steps down the aisle to the first dance. Each of these shots require different lighting to capture that perfect image. For flash, portability is a must, as you shall be moving positions constantly to take the best picture, so you can’t be tied down to one single spot. The correct modifiers will also be a requirement, for instance, if you are trying to take a picture of the bride in a bright white dress and the groom in a dark black suit, you will need to find a way of creating a light to best suit both of these colour palettes.
Example products:
CITI600 TTL: This light is a battery power flash which can offer up to 500 full powered flashes, which should be plenty to last you throughout the day, and weighs just 2.66KG so it won’t cause any discomfort moving it from shoot to shoot. It also comes with Bowens S-Type mount as standard, which is the most common fitting in the market, allowing you to attach many different modifiers to it to suit any shoot.
65cm Rice Bowl Softbox: This softbox offers the ability to control the harshness of the light being produced, allowing it to create the perfect lighting. It comes with a deflector dish also, meaning that it can also be used as a large beauty dish as well as a softbox. The Easy-Open mechanism means that setting up this softbox should only take a few seconds, and transporting it from shoot to shoot will be simple and hassle free.
Shop Events and Wedding Equipment
Location
To capture beautiful shots of nature and wildlife, you need to travel and traverse to the edges of the earth. In order to achieve this, you will need your equipment to be lightweight and portable, whilst also be powerful enough to offer the perfect lighting. Storage is also a massive thing when it comes to shooting on location, as you need to be able to carry your equipment, preferable together, across many different terrains.
PIKA200 Portable Pack Flash Kit: This kit contains everything you would need for location photography. The PIKA200 is a battery powered lightweight flash that can offer up to 500 full powered flashes per charge and weighs approximately 560G. This kit also contains multiple modifiers, including a 48cm Easy-Open Softbox and a 40” Translucent Umbrella, helping to adjust the lighting to suit any shoot or position you may find yourself it. It also comes with a 190cm Lightweight stand to hold your lighting and modifiers in place and a handy padded backpack to carry all of this equipment around.
Fashion
Fashion is a huge industry all across the planet, and one big reason why it is so successful, is the visual impact it has. As most fashion shoots are done indoors, studio light should be more than enough for any photography. Multiple lights are also a must in this industry as it offers a much better spread of light on the subject, whilst also helping to remove any unwanted shadows from the shoot. A nice background is also a very handy addition, due to it being able to make the whole shoot more vibrant and appealing to the viewer.
Example products:
LUMI400 Three Head Boom Kit: The LUMI400 is a 400w mains powered flash that offers Flash Durations of up to 1/2000s and Super-Fast Recycle Times up to 0.3seconds. The three lights offer a very high-quality spread of light over the subject whilst also removing any unwanted dark spots. The Boom Stand is a useful addition as it allows the option to light the subject from above to also help with the light spread.
Telescopic Background Stand and 2x4m Vinyl Black/White Background: The Telescopic Background Stand is adjustable, from 100-280cm height and 120-300cm width, allowing for many different backgrounds to be used to help match any shoot. The 2x4m Vinyl Black/White Background is made from a durable and re-useable Vinyl which can be wiped clean to be used over multiple shoots. The different colours also offer the chance to change the background to offer different opportunities from photography.
Action
When capturing action, from the excitement of sport to the beauty of dance, you need to offer the best lighting possible. As most action shoots will be either outdoors or on-location, battery powered flash would be the best option. Durability would also be a good quality to look out for, because if you are out in terrible weather shooting, you need to know your equipment will be able to handle the strain.
CITI600 PRO: The CITI600 PRO is a 600W Battery Powered flash which can offer up to 360 full powered flashes per charge and offers features such as TTL and HSS. It also Utilises IGBT technology for Super-Short Flash Durations, great for freezing motion. With up to 0.01s Recycling times and a 9 Stop Power Range, the CITI600 PRO is a wonderful addition to any action photography set-up.
70cm Carbon Fibre Slider: This 70cm Carbon Fibre Slider enables you to create cinematic camera motions with the greatest of ease. It is durable and can be powered either via flywheel crank system or a motor-drive system, allowing you optimal control over the speed of the camera motion.
Beauty and Portrait
Beauty and Portrait photography is possible the largest sector in the photography market, and in being this, it requires the best possible equipment. As most beauty and portrait shoots are done in a studio, mains powered lighting will be the perfect option for this. You will also need to find a way to make your shoots visually enticing and noticeable, so different forms of modifiers would be a helpful addition.
Example product:
LUMI200 Three-Head Beauty Boom Kit: The LUMI200 is a 200W studio flash with a super bright 150W Modelling Bulb and an anti-pre-flash function, making it the perfect accompanying light to Speedlites. The addition of the boom stand allows for a more flexible and wider range of lighting on the subject. The wide range of modifiers, such as 42cm Beauty Dish and 60x90cm Softboxes, offer the user the ability to customise the shoot any way they deem fit. The Wind Machine is also a useful modifier, as it isn’t something that is commonly used in photography, and can offer a motion-like effect to your shoot. This kit comes with a large storage case to pack and hold this equipment in when you have finished your shoot.
Shop Beauty and Portrait Equipment
Product
When attempting to sell a product, you need it to look as attractive and appealing to the eye as possible, so getting the right shot is vital. Continuous lighting is a useful option for this, as it allows you to see exactly what lighting you have at that exact time and allowing you to adjust this to best shot the product. A pleasing background is also a useful addition, as it allows the product to stand out more and make the whole shoot look more professional.
Example products:
Daylite4 3400W Twin Kit with Orbit Turntable: Each Daylite4 unit uses 4 85w CFL bulbs, which has the equivalent brightness of 1700W tungsten per each light. Using both of these lights helps to offer high-quality continuous light coverage over the subject you are shooting. The Orbit Turntable is a useful addition to any product photography as it offers you the ability to capture different angles and shots of the products with its 3x adjustable speeds.
Table Top Background Stand with Black PVC Background: The Table Top Background stand is a simple yet ingenious piece of equipment, as it allows you to give smaller products a high-quality background without needing to take up a lot of space for the background. The 60x130cm Black PVC Background offers a sophisticated and stylist background to your product, helping it to stand out and catch the viewers eye.
Interview Video Equipment
When recording any interviews, whether it be celebrity or potential employees, you need to make sure that the quality of the lighting for the video is at the highest standard. As this is Video recording, continuous lighting is the only option available, due to the fact that flash wouldn’t be useful over an extended period of time. Making sure that the lighting is properly modified is also very important, as you need to make sure that the subject it lit up properly for future viewings. For video recording, sometimes green screen is required to allow you to achieve any possible background you require during your shoot, so making sure you have a high-quality and durable background is important also.
Example product:
LED100D MKIII Three Head Softbox Kit: The LED100D MKIII is a 100W LED Light, which offer any equivalent brightness to that of a 1000w halogen lamp, whilst only using 10% of the energy and running many times cooler than the halogen light would. It also offers a 97+ CRI and 97+ TLCI, meaning that the lighting offered would create a sharper and more vibrant look. The use of three lights means that the subject has a high-quality light coverage, whilst also helping to reduce any unwanted shadows, and the addition of the boom stand offers a wide range of lighting opportunities. Each light comes with a softbox, allowing you to modify the light to best suit any given shoot at any given time, whilst still keeping a high quality of light.
Video Blogging Equipment
With the world of social media becoming larger and larger, more and more people are making careers from videos about their hobbies or everyday life. But to become successful in this field, not only do you need passion in your subject, but you also need the right equipment to make you stand out. Using continuous lighting to help show yourself better to the camera is a must, whilst also make sure that you have a pleasing background to fall back on.
Example products:
Video Blogger LED Lighting Kit: This kit is a useful addition to anyone who is looking to become a successful video blogger. It comes with 1x RICO240B MKII Ring light, 2x GLOWPAD350D LED Panels and 3x Stands to hold this all-in place. The RICO240B MKII Ring light is the main light used to light up the subject, as it creates wonderful ring-shaped catchlights in the subject’s eyes. It also comes with a Smartphone Bracket, so if you haven’t got a proper professional camera, your Smartphone will still be able to record for you. The 2x GLOWPAD350D LED Panels are a useful light to help improve the lighting on your subject whilst also helping to light up the scene and background.
2x2.3m Black/White Collapsible Background: This background is a useful addition as it is large enough to provide an adequate background, whilst also being light enough to move and adjust. It can also be folded down to approximately 1/3 of its size and stored away after use, meaning that it won’t also take up unnecessary space when not in use.
Green Screen Video Equipment
When shooting video, sometimes you are going to want to be able to apply any background you would like to your shoot, and this is where Green Screen comes in. Obviously, the most important part of this is to have a proper green screen background, but making sure that you have high-quality lighting is also important. In order to achieve a perfect green screen, you would require an even lighting across the entire background. In order to achieve this, we would suggest using a minimum of three lights at a time, just to make sure you achieve optimal coverage.
Example products:
Muslin Green Backdrop is made from high-grade crease-resistant fabric which makes it extremely durable and due to its Matte-like finish, this background won’t create any unwanted reflections.
VNIX1500S Three head Kit: The VNIX1500S Three head Kit is comprised of 3x 90w LED Video Light Panels which each feature 1520 bright LEDs. This light is mains power, but can also be powered using a V-Mount battery attached to the V-Mount Battery plate that comes as part of the unit. The power can be dimmed from 100% to 10% and has the option for DMX output, enabling you the ability to control them from a DMX control panel.
Smartphone Photography Equipment
Now that the world has advanced technologically and social media has become an important part of everyday life for most people, Smartphones are now being equipped with high quality cameras. In order to get the best selfies possible, using additional lighting is a common occurrence, whether than be lighting attached directly to your phone or exterior lighting.
Example products:
Smartphone LED Ring Light: This Ring light is a small yet powerful 3w light that simply clips onto any smartphone (up to 11cm in width). It features a built-in rechargeable 250mAh battery which can last for up to 45mins on full power and can be charged by a USB charging cable.
RICO240B MKII LED Ring Light: This Ring light is a 48W LED light which has a Bi-Colour output, meaning that you are able to have both Daylight and Tungsten lighting to help match any shoot you have. It also has a Smartphone Bracket included, meaning that you can simply place your Smartphone onto the Ring Light and start posing. When your camera is positioned in the centre of the ring light, you get a unique soft, shadow-less look and produces interesting ring-shaped catchlights in the eyes of your subject.
Smartphone Photography Equipment
Summary
For every industry, you will be required to have different lighting set-ups to offer the optimal and most professional photography possible. Knowing the differences between each industry and what they require will be a massive help in moving forward with any future opportunities that may find their way to you.
