Scott Kelby has a post up where he compares studio strobes and speedlights. This is somthing that I have had going on in my head for quite some time now.

I took a studio lighting class, and the instructor was pretty anti speedlight. Maybe he just hasn’t use them much. I sure wouldn’t want to tell Joe McNally and David Hobby that small off camera flashes don’t put out good light. So, I decided that I would start small. Leave the studio strobes for some later time. Let me be able to say that I can do everything that is possible with one light.

So what did I buy? Well, I had an SB800 before the price lept off the insanity board. I figure you need a hotshoe flash no matter what, so it wouldn’t be a wasted light purchase. I now use it all the time. So what other gear¬†I purchased was a strobist kit from mpex (without the flash). See this post from a couple of days ago. I still intend to post more about the kit, but¬†I took these pics recently with that kit and that mini softbox from the friday post

I have to say that you can get quite different pricing than Scott got. Not on the same equipment, but how “pro” do you want to go? Mpex has one light¬†strobist kits for $219 that includes a flash! Yes, I know that it isn’t as powerful or feature rich as the SB-900, but hey, the price of entry is pretty cheap.

Then there are the alien bee’s studio strobes. The AB800 is $279. That is quite a bit cheaper than the Elinchrom BXRI 500s. ($625 at B&H, but out of stock) So are the AB800’s second fiddle? I haven’t seen enough lights to know. I do know that there are several people that have appeared on Scott’s guest blog that use Alien Bee’s lights, including Zack Arias and Dustin Snipes. I also used the ABR Ring Flash¬†at my class which I loved. So… when I get around to it, I am leaning to the bees.

But for now, I have a lot of learning to do. I have the Nikon CLS video¬†waiting to be watched, and I have wanted to order the Strobist Workshop DVD’s¬†if not attend a workshop myself. I think it would also be cool to attend a One Light Workshop with Zack Arias. ¬†I have read Joe McNally’s The Moment it Clicks, and right now I am reading The Hot Shoe Diaries.

That’s a lot of material to master. I figure I might add another speedlight, or LumoPro LP120¬†from mpex or two in a little while, but maybe I will wait until I can pull of this group shot with a single SB26 manual flash.