Strobes vs. Continuous Light: Which is Right for You? | Inside Fashion and Beauty with Lindsay Adler

Today we are going to compare strobes and continuous lights to review the pros, and cons and which one may be right for your photography. I’ve been shooting strobes for decades but for the longest time, I never even considered continuous lights until the last couple of years. Today’s continuous LED light sources have a lot higher output, cooler lights, more affordability, and tons of modifier options. Strobes also referred to as flash, fire with a single pulse of light. This flash of light is short but powerful. Strobes can be speedlights, monolights, or something called ‘pack and head systems’. Continuous lights, also called constant lights, stay on continuously just like the name suggests. For many photographers new to artificial lighting this is a huge benefit because what you see is what you get. With mirrorless cameras and electronic viewfinders, you can see in the back of your camera how your camera settings change the exposure and look of the image. Strobes: PRO One of the biggest benefits of strobes is that you get a lot of output for a relatively affordable price. For example, when you shoot a group of people you may need to shoot at F11 or even F16. Strobes give you enough output to do so. If you are shooting in a very bright studio with lots of windows, strobes have enough output to allow you to overpower this window light so it doesn’t affect your exposure. Both of these things would be much harder to achieve with continuous lights. Strobes fire for only a fraction of a second, often 1/1000 second or even faster depending on the light. This makes it perfect for freezing motion. Moving hair, a jumping subject, or a dancer will all be able to be frozen in place and sharp. Furthermore, you don’t need to worry about camera shake or motion blur unless you have too much ambient light. This one is kind of a benefit of strobes; there are many different kinds. Beauty dishes, softboxes, umbrellas, etc. I must note that in the past continuous lights h