I bought a Fancier 500 watt light thinking that it would be sufficient for my portraiture needs. It wasn't. Not enough lumens after pushing the light through some muslin cloth. So I didn't want to buy a 1000 watt light since I had the 500 watt lamp already. So instead I bought another 500 watt lamp and had fabricated a bracket out of steel that would mount both lamps on one light stand. It still wasn't quite what I wanted so I bought some cheese cloth and it seems that two layers of cheese cloth softens the light for what I want but I only lose one f/stop doing so. It allows me to use an ISO of 3200 and a shutter speed of 1/125 and an f/stop of f/8. Which obviously allows me to either up my shutter speed and use a much lower f/stop and even drop my ISO if I want. Sometimes I shoot at f/2 and then I can use an ISO of 800 and a shutter speed of 1/250th. Now that is with a throw of one meter from lamp to face. If I am doing a set-up that includes the whole body I am back up to an ISO of 3200 or even 6400.
I would have thought that ISO's of that sort would be unacceptable but I am finding that it allows me to soften the skin texture a bit and with studio lighting dynamic range is not an issue for me. I have included a few images of the new bracket and the lights. I have not had a chance to use the new set-up yet but when I do I will post a few images of the light quality.
I would have thought that ISO's of that sort would be unacceptable but I am finding that it allows me to soften the skin texture a bit and with studio lighting dynamic range is not an issue for me. I have included a few images of the new bracket and the lights. I have not had a chance to use the new set-up yet but when I do I will post a few images of the light quality.