Photography lighting..I am so confused?

I am just wanting to take some pics of my grandkids and want a small studio in my home. I have the stand and backdrops...now what about lights? I am so confused about flash, strobes, continuous lights etc. Please help an amateur take a good portrait. Thanks.

making a home made studio don't have to cost a fortune.
background. buy 6 meters of white sheeting of the roll the sheets come off the roll at about 3m wide and is not expensive. tape to the wall and floor with gaffa tape
stretch out with a curve at the bottom and along the floor to make seamless floor to wall line
machine mart Twin 500W Halogen Floodlights 拢29.36inc.VAT each 1 or 2 of this will more than do you
make reflectors from white sheeting tapped on to old picture frames also can be used for defusing light by holding over lights
also make reflectors from kitchen foil tapped on to old picture frames
use daylight where possible

This can cost a reasonable amount of money or cost as much as your home, so you just need to study various systems. I do know you can get a lot of quality for the price with the Adorama Flashpoint light kits. Alien Bees are also a very good brand and can purchased at relatively low cost.

I feel what you are most confused about is terminology and just what type of light you need.

A strobe and flash are the same thing. That is, the light emits a powerful flash, or strobe, to light your subject. Most of these style of lights will have what are called modeling lights built in so you can see where to position your lights and get an idea of how the end result will look. The advantage to strobe lights is they are much cooler to work around, both for you and for your model. Also, since they use a flash style of light, they will tend to "freeze" the subject. This is probably what you will want for pics of your grandkids, as kids do not tend to sit still for posing.

Continuous lights are just what the term says. They do not flash. They emit a bright, HOT, light at all times. The advantage is what you see is EXACTLY what you get. You can position the lighting and know precisely how the photo will look. The disadvantages of these lights are, again, the heat emitted, plus they cannot "freeze" motion. Your subject has to remain relatively still to avoid blur in your photo. You CAN get lights with so much power that you can set your camera to high shutter speeds to avoid blur, but you are then talking LOTS of heat and lots of money.

For your needs, strobe style lighting is what you will want. Use a white umbrella to bounce the light. Avoid the "mug shot" look and do not position the light pointing directly at the subject. Move it off side for a more pleasing and professional portrait look. You can also use a large reflector opposite the light to bounce some nice fill light back onto the "dark" side of the subject.

You will have to experiment with camera settings. Usually a shutter speed of around 1/80 will work well. The larger your aperture, the less strobe output you will need, but you have to keep a small enough aperture to maintain some depth of field. f/5.6 to f.8 will probably work well for you.

If you are using digital you have it made, You can test all you want to arrive at the best settings. If using film, you will likely need a light meter to get it correct.

Guess that is the basics. Here are some of my studio shots if you want to see various looks that can be done with these lights:

http://www.pbase.com/s_parrott/portraitu...

hope this helps

steve

I don't believe you need all that for taking pics, just good image editing programs.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelba...

With a program you can make lighting and other effects