Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved

I’ve been shooting mostly with “hot lights” (more appropriately continuous lighting) for the last several months while working on a book idea. I’ve got strobe units and small camera flashes, but I like the WYSIWYG ability you get when using continuous light.

I’m in the process of testing the Chimera Triolet lights and I must say that so far I am impressed. They are well-built and put out a constant, reliable light source.

For the shot above, I wanted to dispel one myth – the myth that you can’t freeze action without a strobe. Given the high ISO’s that most modern DSLRs can deliver, I think it’s safe to say you can get enough shutter speed to do pretty much whatever you want with hot lights.

I wanted a little movement in this model’s hair on the ends so I shot at around 1/350th of a second at F/4.5 ISO 4000. If I had upped my shutter speed to 1/1000th a second I could have frozen anything. A typical 500 watt strobe wouldn’t have done much better.

You can indeed get these types of shots without strobes, you just need to crank the ISO. What about the noise you say? This shot from a Canon 1D MK IV has very little noise and I’ve applied a little noise reduction via Nik DFine to eliminate it – the results are fantastic in my opinion.

This image was made with a Canon 1D MK IV and Canon 85 F/1.2 lens. Two minutes in post – adjusted levels, curves, some minor skin softening and contrast added to her hair.

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This post sponsored by the Digital SLR Store