goldengod

I have finally purchased my first photography light kit. I now finally have some photography equipment that allows me to customize the light for photos any way I want. While I have yet to use it, this seems like an incredibly flexible and affordable lighting kit for beginners like myself.

The Light Kit

The kit I decided to start out with is a basic one; so basic that it’s called the “Starving Student Off-Camera Light Kit“. This is a kit that put together by Baltimore photojournalist David Hobby. It’s designed around being low on cost and high on flexibility. You can get the components pretty much anywhere, but it’s sold as a kit through MPEX.

I’ve been reading David’s site, Strobist.com, for about six to eight months now. He knows almost as much about light as Michael Grecco and I’ve come to trust his ideas and recommendations. After a lot of deliberation and comparisons with other options, this sounded like the best option for me to get my feet wet with off-camera lights.

The kit consists of:

• Vivitar 285HV Flash
• 8ft Light Stand
• 15ft PC Extension Cord
• 43” Compact Umbrella - Optical White w/Removable Black Cover
• 8×10 Color Correction Gel Pack
• Ni-MH AA 4-pack w/Charger
• Elastic Ties (10 pack)
• Umbrella Swivel

The Price

The whole lighting kit retails for $185USD. After currency conversion, shipping, tax, etc this will work out to approx $275CDN. I was able to lower the price in two ways. First, I dropped the batteries & charger because I already had a set. Second, my lovely girlfriend Sara had already purchased the stand and umbrella swivel for my birthday to get me started.

I could get most of the equipment from my local shop, the prices are much higher. This isn’t a slight against my local shop; most electronics in Canada are more expensive than they would be if you bought them from the US, even after shipping & duty.

My experience purchasing through MPEX wasn’t the greatest, but that’s the subject for another post. Right now, I’m thinking about spending a large portion of my Sunday playing around with my new toys. Expect the results to show up in my Flickr account soon.