Studio Lighting

Strobe Power and Recycle Time for Fashion Shoots

Mary Kerrigan Mary Kerrigan · 1 min read ·

Fashion photography asks a lot of a strobe, because the pace of a shoot depends on how quickly the light is ready again after each frame. Power and recycle time are the two specs that decide this, and they pull in opposite directions, so a photographer choosing a strobe is really choosing where to trade one for the other.Power matters when you need to light a large set or overpower daylight, and it is measured in watt-seconds. A high-powered strobe lets you shoot at low ISO and small apertures, use large modifiers, and keep up with a bright window, but it draws more energy per flash. That energy has to be replenished before the next shot, which brings recycle time into the picture.Recycle time is the delay between flashes, and it decides how fast you can shoot. A strobe that recycles in under a second lets a model move and a photographer shoot in rhythm, while a slow recycle forces pauses that break the flow and cost you expressions.

Faster recycling usually means either a more powerful pack or working at lower power, so the same strobe that recycles quickly at half power may crawl at full power.For fashion work the practical answer is a strobe with

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