A common misconception amongst new photographers is that you need spend a lot of money in lighting equipment to create professional quality photos. This couldn’t be further from the truth!

As a painter of light you have the power to used and manipulate colors, tones, shadows, and textures with readily avalable and cheap gear. All you need is a simple understanding of how light works, and imagination.

I’ve been shooting professionally for a couple of years and I can tell you that light is light. Doesn’t matter if it comes from the sun, a $600 flash, or a light bulb.

This article is going to be the first of several where I’m going to show you some of the cheap ways I have gotten around paying thousands of dollars on equipment.

For my first article I’m going to list out and explain the everyday lighting gear I carry inside my camera bag. This equipment carries me through 90% of what I shoot and all together cost less than $400

The Gear In My Bag

I travel all around the country shooting different things from events, dance, weddings, nature, fantasy, you name it! So it's very important for me to have a light set-up that allow me to be creative in any situation, yet still lets me be mobile. It would be great to always have strobes, massive soft boxes, stands, and video lights on hand, but when working alone it's nearly impossible to manage all that equipment. So most of the time I make do with what I can carry on my back. Which just so happens to be inexpensive!

I have a 24" reflector, four speedlights, a small LED video light, some triggers, a controllers, and colored gels. All of which allow me to face almost any situation on the field.

Reflector: A reflector is the first thing I recommend for any new photographer. This tool is cheap and offers so much! The one I have comes with a silver, gold, black and white cover and cost about $10. Its great when your outside shooting on a overcast day or in direct sunlight. You can also use them to block unwanted light, like a umbrella. They come in all sizes and are very portable, Although if you get a large one you might need an assistant.

Colored Gels: These are one of my favorite lighting accessories. They're super cheap, come in every color imaginable, and can really make your photos pop!

You can buy them in all different sizes, but if you're just using speedlights don't get sucked into buying gel packs online. Many places like Amazon will try and sell you 5 - 10 gels with nothing more than a fancy rubber band for $20. Sense I only use gels for my speedlights, I buy a sample pack book from Roscolux for $2.50 and just tap them on the front of my flash.

In this image I used a two gelled flashes on opposites sides of the room too illuminate the background and make the subject standout.

Small LED Video Light: I didn’t always carry one of these bad boys, but one time I was an assistant shooter at a wedding and the main photographer used one to expose couples standing in front of a sunset. I liked the effect so much that I invested in a cheap one and I will never go back. These lights are easy to handle and give off a pretty large amount of light for there size.

I use mine to add a little dramatic light in dark places where I dont have the time to set-up flashes. There also great flash lights.

This location was very dark and the subject was coming out flat and uninteresting, but with the LED light on the bottom left, the subject has depth and texture.

Speedlights: These little flashes are the core of my lighting gear. I carry them everywhere I go because they are portable, easy to use, and allow me to be very creative. Now if I choose to buy all name brand stuff like the Canon Speedlite 600EX II-RT, the four flashes I carry would run me about $2,300. If you can afford that, all the power to you, but I’m not about spending a whole pay check on a single flash. So I shop off brand. There are several companies that sell flashes, but I’m a fan of Yongnuo band. There flashes run between $60-$150 and range in functionality offering TTL, Wireless Master, and High-Speed Sync. etc…..

These wireless speedlights allow me to do just about everything I want from shooting portraits, groups, dinners, and with colored gels I can change the color of the light allowing me to be really creative in any situation.

In this image I'm working with three flashes. One is in the back with a red gel. The other is to the left with a light blue gel and the third is in front properly exposing the subject.

Trigger / Controllers : As you can see I also have two triggers and a controller for my flashes. As I said before the Yongnuo flashes range in functionality and they come out with new flashes all the time so two of my flashes are the version II which need a trigger to be fired wirelessly. The other two are the version III and the triggers are built in. So when shopping I would just skip the version II so that you dont have to waste money on trigger.

That aside..... with any wireless flash set-up I would recommend investing in a controller. This tool allows you to control the power output of your flashes from a distance. Having a remote will save you SO MUCH TIME when shooting with several flashes, because you wont have to walk around the room every time you want to change a setting.

Now I do have more lighting gear that I will talk about in later post pertaining to this subject, but as I said before this is my core set-up. Not complicated, fun, and cheap! Below I will post links to everything I talked about with the price so that you can start shopping for what could be your next photography purchase:

Yongnuo YN560-III Speedlite - $63

Yongnuo YN560-TX Manual Flash Controller - $38

Collapsible Reflector - $11

LED Video Light - $33

Roscolux Gel Swatchbook = $2.50