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Tia D's picture

Can I mix strobes and speedlights?

So I am brand new to studio photography and looking into getting some lighting for beauty work. I want to do a strobe on a beauty dish for a main light, but I was wondering if I could use speedlights for background and fill lights, as I can't afford to buy three strobes and speedlights run cheaper. Would a strobe and two speedlights work? Thank you!

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Yes 100%. Technically, the color temps may vary from one to another, but for the most part they should be close enough to one another not to see an obvious color difference. The attached image was lit entirely by speedlights just to show you studio lighting results without studio lighting expense.

It will also have to do with how you wish to trigger your lights. Some Nikon Speedlights have a built-in optical slave mode. This would allow them to be triggered when you fire your main beauty dish. You can also attach a sync cable and add another radio receiver. It'll get dicy if you try to use the TTL system to fire your Speedlights and strobe though.