So you’re looking at getting some lights for your photography but you don’t know what type of light to get. In this article, I’m going to try to show you the difference between the two different types of lights available. It doesn’t matter why light you are looking at, they are going to fall in one of two categories, continuous light or flash. The video above is going to go into detail about the differences between continuous light and flash but let me summarize the pros and cons of both systems.
Continuous light
Pros:
What you see is what you get. Because the light is always on, you get to see it’s effect in real life so it makes it esier to use.
Typically, a little cheaper than a flash of the same quality of light.
Can be bi-color which means you can change the temperature of the light.
Can be RGB LEDs which mean that you can change the light to many different colors
You can get many differen form factors and sizes
Depending on the light, they can use batteries that can run them for many hours.
Cons:
They are not as powerful as flash lights
Because they have less power, they are prone to light contamination.
If photographing people, they can be annoying to the subject.
Flash
Pros:
Lot’s of power.
Can freeze action because of the short duration of the light
Some units can overpower the sun.
They can reduce or remove color contamination
Lot’s of light modifiers available. (Check out this video on my best light modifier)
Cons:
They are more difficult to learn to use
You need a trigger to fire them
They can be a little more fragile because of the flash tube
Typically cannot change the temperature of light internally. (Must use a gel)
Must wait until it recyles before taking another shot.
I hope you’ve found this article helpful. I you have any questions, leave them in the comments section below.