Lighting News

When I realized that this column would be in the magazine’s lighting focus issue, I looked at the data for the photos I’d taken earlier this year during a nearly month-long combination of safari workshop, assignment, and stock shoot in Africa. What I found surprised me: I’d used flash on about one-third of the 13,000 photos I’d made on that trip. I had no idea I’d used my Speedlights as often as I had.

The trend of using continuous light sources for portraiture that I saw at last year’s WPPI show continues unabated with Westcott’s Two-Light Daylight D5 Softbox Kit being the latest offering. The kit uses fluorescent bulbs as a light source, although that word barely appears in Westcott’s early press material for the kit. Part of the reason may be that when it comes to photographs of people, fluorescent has a negative connotation but nothing could be further from the truth.

Broncolor has introduced the Beautybox 65, a new take on its classic beauty dish. Joining broncolor's extensive line of light shapers, Beautybox 65 features a collapsible design, 25.6 inches front diameter and a white interior.

If you read our story on "7 Reasons You Still Need a Flash Bracket for Photography," perhaps you’ve decided it’s time to purchase one of these photography workhorses. Here are our recommendations for 8 Great Flash Brackets to help you achieve studio-quality lighting on the fly.

Canon announced the new Canon Speedlite 430EX III-RT external flash unit this morning. This compact new Speedlite features – for the first time in the Canon 430EX series – radio-controlled wireless flash shooting capabilities that are designed to make creative light control easier for photographers of a variety of levels.

The studio lighting genie is not going back into the bottle anytime soon and LED light sources are finding their place in more and more camera rooms. Clever and versatile lighting systems such as Rotolight’s new Anova V2 and their compact RL48-B battery-powered portable lights are part of the reason why.

The new Pelican 9490 Remote Area Lighting System (RALS) is a self-contained, mobile lighting solution that features a quick release and a rechargeable (swappable) power supply. The 9490 RALS has a suggested retail price of $999.95 and offers up to 6,000 lumens, three preset light levels and up to 24 hours of run time.