Speedlights & Monolights

 Speedlights & Monolights

by William Lulow

Note: This update includes some information about lights that many photographers are using these days but have been around for a while. They are called MONOLIGHTS, because the flash generator is built into the light itself. They have their “pros” and “cons” which are explained here.

Speedlights are small versions of studio electronic flash units. They are very compact and easy to use. Most people buy one that they can place in their camera’s hot shoe to add some light when there is not enough ambient light to make a good picture. Here are some examples:

These units have several things in common. They all have rather small flash tubes. They are all designed to sit on top of your camera or be mounted on a light stand. Some have built in “slaves” that can recognize when another flash goes off and fire the unit at the same time so that you can have a multiple light setup. Some can be used with radios that can sync a number of lights to fire at the same time. Some have round reflectors, which can broaden out the light so that it reaches a wider area. Many, though have small, rectangular reflectors and even smaller flash tubes. So their use is limited unless they can be modified somehow.

Most are battery powered. Some batteries are of the lithium-ion type which are rechargeable and give a bit more power. Many, though are powered by ordinary AA-type batteries that have a limited life span and don’t put out much power. With all this said, these guys are still handy to use if you know how.

There are a few things you need to know about these lights:

1. They are not as powerful as regular studio strobes.
2. They often take longer to recycle which can slow down your shooting a bit. If you use them on full power, it drains the batteries quicker and they take even longer to recycle. I usually use mine on 1/2 or 1/4 power and adjust my exposure accordingly.
3. They are sometimes hard to sync up with your radio slaves.
4. You have to monitor the batteries closely. I usually have a whole lot of AA batteries in my camera bag, and I also make sure my lithium-ion ones are fully charged before each job.
5. The heads themselves are smaller than the size of a human head, so they’re not real good for portraits unless they are bounced off of a larger reflector. (Remember: the larger the light source the softer the lighting effect, something you need for good portraits).

The last one on the right above, is one of my Sunpak 120J units. They have a regular household plug receptacle that allows me to use my Pocket Wizard radios with them. When looking for one of these speedlights, it’s a good idea to see how they can be connected to a radio slave of some kind. That way, you can fire any number of them at the same time, along with one you might want to mount right on top of your camera. So when I do a corporate event or a party, I usually use three lights. Two are placed strategically in the room to both light up the background as well as provide some accent light depending where I am standing with the camera. The third is placed on top of my camera and bounced into a large, white reflector. This is what my rig looks like:

This setup allows me total mobility in a room to create some shots with interesting lighting, not just flat, straight-on shots. Here’s one example created with this setup:

Here is a type of image you can make with lighting the background AND the subject:

If you are careful about where you place these speedlights, you can achieve some great results by using people and various camera angles, using objects or other people to shade the camera lens from the flare of the extra lights.

Monolights

Another thing about speedlights in general, as I have mentioned previously, is that they have less of a power output than regular studio flash units. But because digital sensors are far more sensitive to light than film is, photographers don’t always need so much extra power these days.

There are other types of studio flash units that have been around for a number of decades now called “Monolights.” Some monolights are rated at around 400 watt/seconds (that’s the measurement of how many watts of power per second of flash duration. To give you an idea of what this actually means in studio practice, consider the following: if you are using a studio unit rated at 1000 w/s (watt seconds), you can shoot a subject with a camera setting of f/11 at ISO 100. (Shutter speeds are determined by the flash itself, usually around 1/600th of a second, so actual shutter speed is kind of taken out of the equation in these situations.) If you are using a speedlight, which is somewhere around 100 w/s, you would have to open your lens about three to four stops to get the same exposure. Sometimes it works just fine to use a unit with less power. Other times it can be difficult to obtain the image you want with the proper depth-of-field and sharpness, something I have covered in a previous blog articles. The other thing to note about studio flash units is that the older ones had power ratings of 2000w/s or even 4000 w/s. These units were really designed to give much more light output because photographers were using films that had much slower speeds or lower ISO ratings. The old Kodachrome was ASA (ISO) 25. Ektachrome sheet film, which we used tons of in the studio was rated at ASA 160 or even ISO 100. So, today, given the actual sensitivity of the digital sensor, that kind of power is no longer needed. Photographers with these older flash generators are trying to find ways of reducing the flash output so they can be used with the modern cameras. Now, monolights present a good alternative to the older studio flash units both because they are more easily portable and not as much flash output is required with digital sensors.

The one negative fact about these units is that since the generator is built in to them, if something needs repair, the whole unit has to go to the shop, eliminating one of your lights. So many photographers have several of these just to be on the safe side. The positive facts about them are that they run on lithium-ion batteries that once charged, don’t need any external power. I can remember doing many location shoots in remote places when I needed to bring a portable generator with me to supply power to my studio strobe units. I still have about eight or nine different studio lights (we call them “heads”) that work with my old Dynalite generators, but I am thinking of making the switch to monolights because of the portability factor.

Takeaway

The bottom line is that if you are shooting in studio situations mostly and need excellent detail on your subject matter, a speedlight won’t always fill the bill. On the other hand, if you shoot events most of the time, the speedlight is perhaps the only way to go. They are light-weight, easily portable and can usually give you enough light to enable images to be shot at f/5.6 or so, thereby giving you enough depth-of-field for most situations. Speedlights have their place in any photographer’s equipment arsenal. You just have to remember that they are not as powerful as regular studio flash units, so you have to adjust your exposures accordingly. As I have noted, many new monolights have power settings of around 200-400w/s, which, given today’s camera sensors, should be enough for any studio photographic project.