Flashes (Strobes) vs Continuous Lights for Photography Video Lecture | Capture like a Pro: Digital Photography Tutorial - Professional Skills

a lot of people ask us the difference
between continuous lights like this one
and strobes well I have my Emily here
modeling for me she's heavily backlit
and I'd like some fill on her face so
I'm gonna use the strobe first to get
some photos of her and then we'll use
the continuous light and see the
difference so as you can see her face is
evenly lit and the background isn't
overpowering the subject at all I'm
gonna turn off the strobe so you can see
what it looks like with no fill at all
you can see she still looks good in
those photos but she's a bit
underexposed and the background is a
little bit overpowering let's try the
continuous lights we set up the
continuous light and we have it going
now you can see the difference in this
one I'll take a photo and see if we can
tell the difference in stills
it looks pretty much the same the
differences with the strobe you don't
know what you're getting until the
strobe fires with the continuous light
you can see the light as you shoot the
negative to that is you're burning
through more energy and also you're
putting more unnecessary light on your
model Emily what's it like the
difference between a flash and the light
always being there it's nice at first
but after sitting here for a little bit
it is starting to get a little hot and
it's definitely a little bit too bright
in my eyes right now so for the model
it's a little bit overwhelming to have a
constant light on them so a possible
downside of the continuous light is even
though they're LED they still get pretty
hot which means that your models makeup
could start running or they can get
sweaty it's not really great to have a
superhot studio but some of the bonuses
are that the light you see is the light
you get you don't need a remote so you
can just shoot with any setup including
your smartphone so let's try it another
bonus for me is that we can use this
light during video without with without
with so if we need a more flattering
light source while we're shooting one of
these tutorials now we have that option
in summary continuous lights have many
advantages over strobes
despite generally being more expensive
continuous lights work with any camera
including your smartphone while strobes
require a remote trigger continuous
lights are useful for both Stills and
video while strobes can only be used for
stills
continuous lights are always visible so
you know what you get with strobes you
have to take a picture see the effect
and then fine-tune the lighting and use
some trial and error though it's not
that big of a deal
however strobes have several key
advantages over continuous lights that
make them a better choice for most still
photographers our strobe with seven
stops more powerful than our continuous
light allowing us to easily overpower
the Sun despite being more powerful
strobes are generally much smaller and
lighter than continuous light strobes
can go all day with less battery power
than you'd need for one hour of
continuously strobes stay cool to the
touch or powerful continuous lights get
hot and are also sometimes uncomfortably
bright for the model
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