Flash photography tip: Start with a less powerful studio flash

Thursday 16 February 2023, 12:24 by Elja Trum | 3,104 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

When you want to get started with flash photography, you can choose between speedlights and studio flashes. Both are good options, but speedlights give you more mobility. A studio flash often depends on a mains connection. They are also usually heavier.

Yana-Meau - f/16, 1/160s, 100 ISO @ 120mm
They are also more powerful than compact speedlights. That may appeal to you, but more flash power is not always better.

Unless you want to photograph outside in bright sunlight or very large groups of people, or complete buildings for example, a powerful studio flash is not very useful.

For portrait photography, for example, a 250 Ws flash is much more useful than a 1,000 Ws flash. More important, really, is how many stops you can turn the flash down by.

A 200 Ws flash that can only cover 4 stops is less interesting than a 200 Ws flash that can flash 7 stops lower. If you mainly want to photograph portraits, I would not quickly choose a flash more powerful than 400 Ws.

These days, there are also options that combine the best of both worlds. You get a relatively compact but powerful flash that can run on a battery. For example, a Godox Witstro AD300 Pro, an Elinchrome ONE or a Profoto B10.

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About the author

Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.

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Would you like to take better photos and keep up with what is happening in photography? Photofacts publishes articles that teach you something about photography — from a product announcement to a practical shooting tip or a look at a website. Photofacts covers photography every day and is a hobby project of Elja Trum's that got out of hand. The articles are written by a team of volunteer authors. If you would enjoy writing one or more articles for Photofacts, do get in touch.More about Photofacts

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