Very Excited : New Studio Equipment on the way

Well I have been hemming and hawing for many months about investing in some lighting equipment and branching out into Portrait work. I spent a lot of time researching and set up a few model shoots to get a feel for this type of work.

I also was a regular at the excellent strobist.com site and their very helpful community on Flickr to seek advice. Initially the whole strobist ethos appealed to me – gorilla lighting on a shoestring budget, anywhere – anytime. However after many late nights trying to come to grips with the various components and trawling eBay and various second hand resources for old Flashes, cheap umbrella’s & stands, poverty wizard, and what not I just got tired (and quite bored tbh).

So I started to look at Studio lighting, the type that comes with everything in one package, all from the same manufacture and covered by their own warranty. I looked at the obvious like Bowens and Elinchrom but the majority of the equipment particularly accessories were way out of my megre budget.

eBay has many non-brand sellers of lighting equipment from Hong Kong and more local in the UK, but you just don’t know what you’re getting. When it comes to plugging something into the mains electricity I am a little more cautious!

The Lencarta studio setup I ordered

Then I came across a UK company called Lencarta. From reading various reviews across the web and in print they seemed to offer the best bang for my buck (or Euro). I spent a lot of time on their site to figure out the best package and then gave up and rang them. I unexpectedly ended up speaking to Garry Edwards, one of their representatives and a well regarded Photographer in his own right. Garry runs his own studio and has also published a number of tutorial ebooks and videos covering various lighting topics. He also runs workshops from his studio in Leeds, Bradford. I’ve shortlisted a number of his videos to get me started.

I had already interacted with Garry through the TalkPhotogaphy Forums a number of times and always found him particularly helpful. He was just as helpful on the phone and offered a ton of advice over a 30 minute conversation. With his help we built a custom package to meet my initial needs.

So order is place and I am now waiting excitedly for my new lighting equipment to arrive and start a new chapter in my photographic journey.

So anyone available to model for me…?