CONTINUOUS VS. FLASH

The debate heats up. For years photographers have debated the pros and cons of continuous vs. flash lighting and flash most often won. This was because the most common and affordable continuous light was Tungsten HOT lights. Today the debate has changed. With several continuous light sources to choose from, flash is no longer the defacto winner.

We sell all of the four light source types including HID, Fluorescent, Tungsten and flash. Our preference is always Continuous HID or Fluorescent. As a result of our extensive studio experience, we believe that flash gets in the way of great composition and continuous lighting is better suited for digital cameras.

	CONTINUOUS			FLASH
ATTRIBUTE	HID ALZO 2000	Fluorescent ALZO 100, 300 & 600	Tungsten Conventional HOT	Flash Options
Best use	Almost all studio photography tasks Portraits	Small - Medium objects including food Portraits with ALZO 600	Small - Medium objects, not for food Portraits	Portraits & Stop Motion
Degree of difficulty mastering	EASY	EASY	EASY	DIFFICULT
Subject composition issues	NONE	NONE	Subject can not be close to lights and will get hot	Difficult to view subject with model lights
Heat on subject	MINIMAL	NONE	EXCESSIVE	MINIMAL
Power consumption	MODERATE	MINIMAL	EXCESSIVE	MINIMAL
Relative Brightness	Very Bright	Bright	Bright	Very Bright
Bulb operational life	7000 hrs	10,000 hrs	20 - 100 hrs	Model Bulb = 200 hrs Flash = 20,000 uses
Color temperature issues	Daylight	Daylight	3200K "warm"	Dual color temperature
Triggering Issues	NONE	NONE	NONE	YES, Reliability?
Responsiveness	VERY	VERY	VERY	Restrictive due to Capacitor Recharge Time
Reliability	100%	100%	100%	Triggering issues reduce reliability
Light Meter Requirement	Optional	Optional	Optional	Flash Meter Required

Color temperature and flash lights - The color temperature of the model light of flash lights is different from the flash tube. The model light is typically tungsten at 2700K - 3200K (warm) and the flash tube is 5500K (daylight film). This dual color temperature is a problem for all digital camera LCD display monitors. The digital camera must have its white balance set to 5500K for the flash to render accurate color, but when viewing the subject under the model light with the LCD, the subject will typically look very orange and not properly exposed. This eliminates the usage of most digital cameras LCD for subject composition. SLR digital cameras allow "through the lens" viewing and this becomes the only acceptable means of subject composition.

Reliability - Flash lights are triggered from the camera and many triggering options are available including "slave" triggering, hard wiring and wireless trigger devices. All of these triggering options have drawbacks and hard wiring is the most reliable and least desirable. During a shoot with many triggered flash units, it is difficult for the photographer to monitor the performance of all of the flashes, and some could fail to flash without notice. Frequently photographers complain about failed flash units after the shoot is over. Continuous lights do not have trigger issues.

Responsiveness - All flash units require 1 or more seconds to recharge prior to availability. When using different flash units in a shoot, each unit will have a different recycle time. With a mixed flash environment, a photographer must wait about 5 -10 seconds between shoots to assure consistent illumination. Continuous lights do not recycle and photographs can be shot at any interval.

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