Speedlites And Studio Strobes, At What Cost

Hi, welcome to my blog. It’s good to be back in the saddle again. Today I want to talk to you about speedlites and studio strobes. Also the costs you might want to consider when you buy them. First I want to say, I think they are both needed tools in the arsenal of any professional photographer. Both have strengths and weaknesses, the speedlights are very portable and extremely flexible but are whimpy in power. They run off a few AA batteries a can fit in a pocket. Studio strobes on the other hand allow you to create any photographic vision with “Mucho Power”, almost without limitation. They are heavy so they aren’t very portable, and they won’t fit in places where a speedlite will.

People think that speedlites are much less money than studio strobes and they are if you only need one, but that is a very slim chance indeed. When working with any flash, it is all about the amount of power they can generate. The more power the bigger the area you can light. When working with white backgrounds for example, lighting with speedlights can be a helluva challenge. It’s a challenge that could not be done with a single speedlite, unless you are making pictures of barbie dolls on a white backdrop. On the flip side with a studio strobe, I can do a 100% white background and light my model with a single strobe, a real one light setup.

If I could only have one choice of strobes, studio or speedlites, it would be a hard choice. In the end, I would have to choose the studio strobes. In the long run the studio strobes cost much less than the speedlights (Broncolor, Profoto excluded . Watch the video below to see what I mean. 3 stop’s of needed light using Nikon SB-910′s or Canon 600RT’s can cost a fortune, see for yourself.