Chris,


A comment from a relative lighting newbie, with strawberries up and down my legs from some bad falls. 120 W/S lights will bum you out rather quickly, though they might make good hair lights! A 24x32 softbox is good for tight product shots and head shots, you do not start getting into a decent softbox till you are 30x60 or larger, and maybe a 47" inch octobox. When you have these larger modifiers (soft box is just that), you will find that 120W/S monolights are way underpowered for decent portrait photography. I am a firm believer in buy it right, and buy it once. I have now spent the better part of a grand on bad lights, and have learned my lesson, dont do the same.


I can only recommend three good lighting systems, Profoto = big bucks, big impact , Elinchrom, medium to big bucks, still big impact, and PCB, minimal bucks and still big impact.


I eventually chose the PCB route ( Paul C Buff of Alien Bees/Einstein fame ). I started with a 580 Speedlight, then added a 580EX II, and some good umbrella