Photography: Buying a Modifier

Video Transcript

"In this segment I just want to mention about prices and why you might choose one reflector over another. The thing with modifiers is they come in so many different price ranges and they all do very different things, so you kind of want to think about what you want to get. Sometimes it's nicer just to start with the cheaper stuff, unless you know exactly what you want to get. Soft boxes can be relatively expensive, this is actually a Chimara, a small Chimara, and this probably costs about $250. When you get up to a medium Chimara where this is about $350, just depending when, and where, and who you're buying it from. There's off brands that are a little cheaper, but the quality changes on each one that you get, so you want to be wary of that. These kind of lights here are modified, older fresnels can be quite expensive. Your umbrellas can be relatively cheap, I think I paid about $25 or $30 for this one, these are great ways to get started. White cards, very inexpensive, throwing one of these up on a stand with a clamp, as you can see I've used this one quite a bit, is a great reflector, you can use these things all the time. Just a white card, great way to get started. This reflector, because it's a little bit more specialized, is about $45 I think is what I paid for this. Your budget dictates what you're going to do, and eventually if you decide to do this professionally, you're going to end up with a big pile of lights and modifiers that you will use in different situations, just depending on what you're trying to achieve, really, sometimes your mood, just really gives you lots of options."