Continuous Lighting vs Flash Heads
 

Hi,
Could someone please explain the pros and cons of continuous lighting as opposed to studio flash heads. I have a small home studio in which I have so far used flash heads with a softbox or umbrella; I am reasonably happy with the results. I use a light meter to get the correct exposure, and an elinchrom trigger system to fire the flashes.
However, I have been reading about continuous lighting and wondered if there was any benefit from using it instead of the flash system outlined above. What are the pros and cons of continuous lighting?
I would be most grateful for any advice or recommendations as I am still relatively new to studio portrait work and am keen to learn more.
Thank you in advance.
Tom

I wouldnt think it would be great for portraits, if i were a ,model id get asnnoyed with the lights being continuous, and you may end up getting squinty Eyed shots as a result,
Your flash system sounds Pretty good, so id stick with it, It is good for product and still life photography though, so if you did a lot of that, then maybe i could reccomend it, But as you already have a Decent flash set up, i wudnt waste money buying another,

Dan

Thank you Dan, your advice makes good sense.
Appreciate it.
Tom

i think it's just easier to see the effects of light positioning because it's constant but they do get hot and make your models uncomfortable.

I think another issue is that bright light will cause the pupils of the models eyes to dilate more and make less flatering portraits, as Kezpock pointed out they do get hot and make models more uncomfortable but for me it isn't just the heat, being in an environment with softer lighting will naturally cause a more relaxed atmosphere for the model to work in.

Direct light for still life however is a different kettle of fish but even then you still probably would want to difues the light in most situations.

I don't really agree that continuous lighting gets hot..... yes, it did in the past, hence the name 'hot lights', but it's not the case with the more recent long-life daylight bulbs. However, I'll go along with the view that continuous lighting will make pupils dilate.

I also consider that continuous lighting produces nothing near as much light as a flash head can provide - and that leads to slightly slower shutter speeds, introducing some blur..... on a more recent camera, that can be cured with a higher ISO without any noticeable noise, while a fast lens with a wide aperture will give faster shutter speeds, but sometimes reduces the depth of field to a bare minimum, like the eyes in focus but the nose and ears blurred.

I like the quality of continuous lighting, but I'm sure a professional (or anybody that wants to invest serious money into a studio setup) would find many more advantages with flash.

Thank you all for your advice - I have learnt a lot.
Very much appreciated.
Tom

Hi Tom,

I'm no expert on this but I have seen a couple of videos from Lastolite on their RayD8 continuous lighting system. You can download them free from iTunes.

Hope that this helps.

Cheers Steve