Best strobes on a budget

I am in the process of looking at strobes for an in home studio. Nothing hugely expensive. I am thinking about a few different options,

1. Alien Bees www.paulcbuff.com/b1600.php

2. White Lightning's www.paulcbuff.com/x1600.php

3. Westcott's kit at B&H www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/541989-RE...Three_Monolight.html

Torn between these options as if I go with the alien bee's or white lightning's I have to buy my modifiers through Buff, and they cost more than B&H. However if I go with the bee's or lightning's they are super easy to use and relatively portable. Thoughts? Suggestions?

I should have read your post before putting my last up. I'm looking at the Alien Bee's also and was wondering how these would work with my Canon 7D and possibly the PW plus x.

We are in the same boat

I have the westcott setup that you have linked. I like them easy to use, uses Bowens style adapters so you can get modifiers from anyone. I trigger my with radiopoppers but there is a built in optical trigger.

Here's my two cents. I've been shooting for a few years with continuous/ambient light as well as flashes (studio and speedlights). I use both speedlights and studio lights (AB and Einsteins). You can get an idea of how and what I shoot in my photo album.

Here are some things to consider. Why you want to shoot in a home studio? Will you want to take this setup with you to other locations outside or inside. Do you have someone to help you carry this gear with you? Do you want to control the power output of the lights without having to walk to the light and adjust it?

The reason I ask these questions is because light is light. That's what I teach to the photographers in our meetup group. You just have to figure out how to modify the light to do what you want it to do. You can get a speedlight and make it do what a studio light does as long as you modify/manage the light effectively. The big difference is light output.

You can get adapters for other light modifiers (lightboxes) so you can use them on your AB. They just need to have the right mounting holes on the light modifiers.

My suggestion is to get one light first. Play with it for a while and buy another one only when you figure out that you need another light. I'm leaning more towards the AB because you can buy a transmitter (Cyber Commander) and receiver (Cybersync CSRB+) that allows you to control the light output without having to walk up to the light. You can also take the power down below 1/4 power on the AB. The Westcott lights look like they only go down to 1/4 power. On a side note, the Vagabond mini is pretty cool and is portable power for your AB, White Lighting, Einsteins, laptop, continuous lights, phone charger, etc. We used the Vagabond mini for a blacklight shoot a couple weeks back and it performed very well.

If you only want the big softboxes and stuff like that for the home studio but hate the weight of the studio lights then get a bunch of speedlights and buy those softboxes for the speedlights. The Apollo Orb and Strip are pretty nice and you can also get grids for them. You've got a camera that performs well at higher ISO. No one ever said you had to shoot at ISO 100 when doing studio work. I know the limits of my camera and don't always shoot at ISO 100 in studio.

Hope that helps a little bit. If you have any questions then don't hesitate to ask.

My Flashpoint monolight goes down to 1/32 on the output knob. However, I'm not real confident of the exact amount of output down below 1/4. If you expect to spend a lot of time at very low settings, the units with the digital readouts might be a better choice than the old knob by itself.

Big softboxes can eat up the space in a tight home studio real quick.

I prefer my monolight, but often do use a speedlight in addition to the monolight. It is refreshing to see a post that respects the various types of lights. Only too common to see others who insist that speedlights are the only way to go. Ok for them, but not really a golden rule.

Kelly Cook