DIY Strobist On The Cheap...ish

I've been getting more and more involved with photography over the past few years and with every photoshoot I do I gain a bit of knowledge in some area or another. My next venture is getting into a more professional level of strobe photography. Currently I have two continuous 250 watt lights that I shoot with shoot-though umbrellas, which works... but it's just not enough power to really capture someone in all their essence. I'm still looking for a somewhat cheap solution to this issue, but so far I've found that the best investment seems to be in a strobist system. This is where you actually use standard on-camera flashes and you take them off... your camera...

This allows for the same quality shot you might get with a super expensive studio setup, but for half the cost, plus it gives you the option to go somewhere and shoot someone in a location where you have no access to a wall socket. The other nice benefit of using standard on-camera flashes is that making diy light modifiers (such as softboxes or snoots) is really simple.

So, how cheap is cheap...ish you ask? You can get a Vivitar 285HV for $81 bones on Amazon, a light stand and the connections for another 65 bucks or so, plus maybe an umbrella for $12 at Adorama. So for under $200 bucks you can have yourself a pretty nice little setup. I've been looking over my options recently and I think I'm going to pick up two 285HV's and a two flash strobist kit similar to this one from Midwest Photo Exchange. These kits start at $199 and include everything you need (minus the strobes themselves) to get the most professional lighting system a starving art student can ask for.