As I have said before, I am a huge fan of saving money where ever and whenever you can…..if it makes sense. Let’s talk about lighting and why doing this on the cheap is so hard. Lightbulbs suck. There, I said it, plain and simple. I have tried probably 20 different lightbulbs this past year, bright white, daylight, you name it, if it claimed to be some form of daylight bulb, I have tried it. The end result of over $100 in light bulb purchases this year? Cheap daylight bulbs all over the house, and the purchase of decent studio lights. Why didn’t these lights work?

In forums and comments all over the net you will see people asking the same question over and over again – “What equipment should I buy?”. Not meaning to sound rude, but this is like asking some stranger on the street “what kind of car should I buy?”, the simple answer is “you aren’t giving me enough information to give you an answer”.

I am a big believer in bartering goods and services whenever possible. This week I did some computer service for a professional photographer friend of mine, in exchange he offered me one of his older studio lights. When he handed it to me I thought “what the hell is he giving me”. The old box lamp that looked like something from the dark ages. He swore this Lowel Omni Light was a top notch light.

I basically started off my photography journey doing product shots for some hobby websites I had. I was competing against big print magazines so I always strived to come up with product shots that were as good or better than what the big guys were doing.

As i write this I am on vacation with my wife in San Francisco and I think that taking a look at some example photographs may help you take better travel photos. While there are plenty of the basic snapshot photos, I also want to capture something a little different sometimes.

Sure a nice set of Alien Bee’s may be in your Amazon wish-list waiting for you to win the lottery in order to afford them. If you are just getting started, you don’t need to spend that kind of money on some basic lighting.

If you aren’t an avid eBay’er, this isn’t a bad time to get started, but you can find all of the components you need at your local stores.