The Fine Art of Lighting and Hiring

In lean economic times when you might be worrying where the next paid job is coming from, hiring equipment on a job-by-job basis can actually look more like sound financial sense than the fool-hardy and short-term exercise it might have at one time appeared. Above and beyond that, renting offers the opportunity to try out new equipment before you buy – and, usually, if you do decide to make a purchase somewhere down the line, the people you’ve hired it from will normally offer a discount or deduct the original hire charge from the sales price. Pretty quickly, leasing kit rather than making an outright investment begins to make a lot of sense for the jobbing photographer.

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Fortunately then, there are more than just a handful of hire outlets offering the latest and greatest technological innovations to today’s professional. Of course most offer the opportunity to buy as well, so you can decide which avenue suits best. But whether you’re buying or renting, the first step is deciding which equipment is going to be the best fit. And, since this issue has a loose fine art theme, we’ve taken that subject as our basis for sourcing recommendations from those in the know.A

Lighting specialist Interfit doesn’t rent out its equipment, and, according to UK Sales Manager Tony Dudley, neither do its distributors; which only leaves the sales route if the following info switches a lightbulb on in your head. Tony suggests Interfit’s Super Cool-lite or ‘SC’ range as being ideal for fine art images as it produces a soft light that, he claims, no other light can match. “Many people think you have to use flash to get such soft lighting,” Tony continues. “That is no longer the case and you can see the results before you press the button.”

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New to the Interfit range this year are the SC6, SC655, SC9, or the ‘Monstar’ kit, aimed at the pro market. In terms of pricing Interfit’s SC6 kit is on promotion until 22 December at £359.99 and includes two heads, 12x32w lamps, two 16-inch (40cm) reflectors, two 31-inch (80cm) Octoboxes, two light stands and a colour box. The Super Cool-lite 655 kit meanwhile comes with large COR752 stands for £692.99 inc. VAT and the Monstar kit supplies three 150w fluorescent lamps, a 39-inch (100cm) Octobox, stand and a bag for £435.99, again inc. VAT.

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For photographers wanting to broaden their scope to include fine art photography, it can often make sense to weigh up whether to hire or to buy key equipment, such as lighting. Gavin Stoker gets illuminating advice from manufacturers, distributors and hire firms in order to spotlight the right route for you.

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