I had a conversation with a colleague recently about just how much importance to place on having “the right” studio gear. She asked me for an opinion on a cheap lighting kit she’d found on Facebook Marketplace and was almost embarrassed to admit that it was the grade of gear she was looking at. It reminded me a lot of where I got started with lighting and so I wanted to share that story.
My very first studio lighting purchase was back in, oof, like 2005… it was an SP Studio Systems SPPORTKR strobe kit. It came with two lights, a couple stands and umbrellas, a whole bunch of clips and clamps, and a big plastic snoot. Everything an aspiring young photographer would need to get started, and I found it randomly at Value Village for around $200! It all came in a huge flat cardboard box with a handle and a ton of padding foam inside. I remember the box was baby blue, which is why it caught my eye while thrifting t-shirts.
The actual kit, as still seen on B&H Photo
Literally the only clear picture I have of my first lighting kit.
I found this photo of a nearly identical kit on ebay. Looks like they might even still be making these!
photo: johns-deere (eBay)
I loved this kit, not only because it was all mine, but because of the creative freedom it meant. I could go anywhere with a power outlet and shoot with strobes! I could do creatives that looked like something other than window light! It lived in my car for almost two years and saw an incredible amount of use in my early career.
Still getting some love
I had completely forgotten that when I moved on to professional lighting, that this kit was handed down to my good Thomas of mine who was starting his own studio lighting journey. As I’m writing this blog it occurs to me that I had this conversation with Tommy like 6 months ago and turns out that he still has the lights! He sent me these photos as proof:
image courtesy: Thomas Hall
image courtesy: Thomas Hall
Whats that Burning Smell?
this is what an unburnt SP snoot looks like
My fondest memories of that kit now are mostly the catastrophic failures that it forced me to endure. The real learning experiences probably. I watched one of the lights start to billow smoke during my first ever wedding shoot... in front of the newlyweds. The lights would frequently feed power back thru the release cable and into my camera, in turn giving me a low, continuous electrical shock if I touched any metal on the camera while they were on.
The clear winner, however, was the time that I left the hot modelling lamp on with the very plastic snoot attached… I turned my back for a couple of minutes and suddenly the whole end of this light funnel was drooping like a sad elephant as it spilled molten plastic on the floor…
All of this is to say that you should buy whatever the best kit you can afford is, but that there are a ton of budget options available. This story is from 2005 and is about a kit that was already ancient at the time. I encourage you to use some of the current budget brands and find what works best for you. Even now there are some pieces of my studio that are from Adorama, Amazon Basics or similar.
2006: Cool Guy Tim checking in with his cool guy lights