Photography Lighting Equipment that You Need as a Professional Beginner Photographer?

When you are beginning your career in photography, your skills and passion are paramount. What type of camera you pick is also a big decision. However, these are not the only things you will want. You do want a photo studio and whilst setting up your photo studio you also have to invest in quality and essential lighting equipment.

If you think that you can get away without needing such lighting equipment, then think again. You will find yourself lagging behind when it comes to giving that precise and structured finish to your photo captures. And it is not that you have to shell out much for lighting equipment. You can get these at affordable prices, and in your budget.

Now the question comes what type of lighting equipment you need. You don’t have to source in all at once. Initially, you can start with only the essentials and then add on according to the scale and expansion of your work profile.

Photography Lighting Equipment – What to Buy?

Here, we will tell you what type of photography lighting equipment you need to invest in for your photo studio:

• Continuous Lighting Kit

This kit is used for still life photography, product photography and video. Continuous lighting helps to visualize how the lighting will appear even before the shooting, thereby allowing you to adjust the lighting specific to your needs.

This kit is easy on the pocket and it is also an important one that allows for manual adjustment of the lighting. In today’s times, you can choose from 3 different continuous lighting kits including tungsten, fluorescent and LED. Out of all these fluorescent is the most common, and LED is also a good one to be in use. Tungsten is somewhat less preferred because it can get heated as compared to the other two.

• Speedlight Kit / Flashgun

These are flashlights that are used in conjunction with an umbrella or softbox to disperse the light. Smaller in size, portable, and fast than normal flashlights, these come with high power outputs. An extremely useful tool, these are highly versatile in use and are preferred for still and product photography applications. When you prefer off-camera lighting then this affordable lighting equipment is the ideal choice.

• Reflector Kit

While you can create a cheap DIY reflector DIY for your home studio using cardboard and a few other items, for more professional and versatile results a reflector kit also becomes an essential addition to your lighting equipment. These can be used both indoors and outdoors and can effectively turn the light into key light and can also reflect the light turning that into hair light.

• Softboxes

This lighting equipment is also highly popular amongst professional photographers and you can find these in different sizes and shapes. The main use of a softbox is to soften the light to make it more flattering. A highly popular photo studio accessory these are quite directional and you won’t find any difficulty in controlling these with ease.

• Monolight Strobe Lighting

A must-have lighting equipment for product and model photography, moonlight strobe lighting is also termed as self-contained strobe units as these come equipped with stands, reflectors, and power sources. As the head of the lamp contains the power source, you won’t be requiring adding any other power generator.

• Diffusers, Gels and Filters

These are additional equipment for your photography lighting as these allow you to create and to alter the lighting effects in a precise and successful way. These additions don’t cost much but are flexible and versatile in use and provide extensive uses with your lighting equipment to obtain much finer and effectual results.

• Light Stands

These are a basic asset for your lighting equipment and become important to have so as to hold the light sources. Make sure that you choose the light stand after considering it can hold the heaviest lighting equipment you have.

• Flags

During your photography application, there can be certain objects on which you don’t want the light to fall on. This is where flags come of great use as this helps to block or flag the light. This can be used to avoid light exposure on certain subject parts or to avoid the light falling on the background and as such.

• Umbrellas – Translucent / Shoot-Through

These are different to the normal white or silver umbrellas used by photographers in photo studios. These have become more popular in today’s times owing to the reason that these allow to soften the light being equipped with diffusion material. After using a shoot-through umbrella you get an even and beautiful result.

Conclusion:

These are the basic photography lighting equipment that you should have to start with your photo studio setup. There are many more that you can add, or can replace from the above, all that depends on what type of photography you are engaged in and what end result you are looking to achieve. After all, if you need any improvement in your photographs there are many types of photo editing services available in the industry like background removal services and image retouching services etc.