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Hensel applies for Insolvency

AgX

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Hensel, a german manufacturer of professional photographic lighting, is not the first to do so.

Lighting manufacturers Metz and Multiblitz did so before. Bowens closed orderly.
However Metz survived after a restructuring and still is offering a smalll lighting portfolio
 
too bad;their products were very good.
 
It's a bit surprising, really. I can understand why so much of the film-specific photo market is struggling but lighting is necessary regardless of what type of camera one uses. Is there just less studio photography going on than there used to be?
 
It is entirely my fault. Every time I but a product, the company goes bankrupt or at least stops making the thing I buy. Topcon, Contax, Franke & Heidecke, Zone vi, Deardorff, Metered Light, Hensel. I believe I have doomed Cooke next.
 
Pentode said:
It's a bit surprising, really. I can understand why so much of the film-specific photo market is struggling but lighting is necessary regardless of what type of camera one uses. Is there just less studio photography going on than there used to be?
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Hensel just got too expensive(greedy).
 
cowanw said:
It is entirely my fault. Every time I buy a product, the company goes bankrupt or at least stops making the thing I buy. Topcon, Contax, Franke & Heidecke, Zone vi, Deardorff, Metered Light, Hensel. I believe I have doomed Cooke next.
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No, it rather is my fault as I only buy used stuff.
 
cowanw said:
It is entirely my fault. Every time I but a product, the company goes bankrupt or at least stops making the thing I buy. Topcon, Contax, Franke & Heidecke, Zone vi, Deardorff, Metered Light, Hensel. I believe I have doomed Cooke next.
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If I may be so bold, please refrain from buying any Kodak or Ilford products for the foreseeable future. You might want to reconsider any Foma products while you're at it.
 
Pentode said:
It's a bit surprising, really. I can understand why so much of the film-specific photo market is struggling but lighting is necessary regardless of what type of camera one uses. Is there just less studio photography going on than there used to be?
Click to expand...

It seems to me (as an outside observer) that there has been a shift in lighting: studio electronic flash replaced by LEDs, less need for high-powered handheld flash given higher ISOs, and greater sophistication of on-camera flash (TTL, etc). Not sure all the traditional manufacturers can keep up.
 
What a shame. I have a number of Hensel monolights and strobe/power packs. They are built like tanks. I hope there will still be spares and repair services still around.
 

We're also seeing a lot of pushback from former 'lower end' makers leveraging overseas design and fabrication to produce impressively competitive products while keeping their costs squarely in the 'economy model' range.

If buyers can't tell the difference in the end results from the lights after post processing, and one company is offering the same bang for a fraction of the dollars, then is it any wonder that people would either save some cash on the cheaper product? [Or get way more light for the same price?]
 
Strobes and power packs handle a lot of potentially dangerous current. I would think twice about buying unknown bargain equipment.
 
Pieter12 said:
Strobes and power packs handle a lot of potentially dangerous current. I would think twice about buying unknown bargain equipment.
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Sure, think twice about unknown brands,... But given the relatively high praise I've seen from users of Godox and Yougnuo gear, and my current inability to remember having ever heard of Hensel gear before today...

Well, that might have something to do with why Hensel is filing 'fun' paperwork.
 
Pieter12 said:
What a shame. I have a number of Hensel monolights and strobe/power packs. They are built like tanks. I hope there will still be spares and repair services still around.
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my Hensel Porty is up in the Classifieds already
 


Hensel isn't being hurt by Godox and Youngno; those companies just make small on-camera flashes. Hensel makes large studio strobe systems. Different product, different markets. Studio lights are mainly sold to pros who do portraits in studio and commercial photographers. The problem is these pro markets are small, and it seems like there are a very large number of studio strobe makers for such a small market. Think of all the brands: Prophoto, Hensel, Speedotron, photogenic, Elinchrom, Paul Buff, Norman, Lumedyne, Broncolor, Dynalite, Novatron. Those are just the 'brand names.' There are lots of cheap Asian made strobes sold under other names like Flashpoint and Interfit.
 
But part of these manufacturers (like Bowens) already shifted their production to China. As far I know Multiblitz remained in Cologne. And both went under.
 
chriscrawfordphoto said:
Hensel isn't being hurt by Godox and Youngno; those companies just make small on-camera flashes.
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You might want to look again at what they've been releasing in the last while. Godox has a very capable and flexible range of products at this point

Yongnuo doesn't have much in real 'studio kit', but I've seen more than a few professional photographers switch from large studio lights to ganging up clusters of smaller flashes. - You can break apart a gang of small wireless strobes to spread light around a scene as you need it, but a large studio flash can only be one light source at a time.

The 'big name professional lighting!' companies are effectively pricing and marketing themselves out of business.
 

I don't think you can get speedlights to recycle quickly enough and fire in the kind of bursts most fashion photographers use. Plus, that's a lot of batteries to change during a big shoot.

Studio car photographers once were a major user of big strobe systems. Today, a lot of that is computer-generated (event kind of shots that were done on location).
 
Hensel made good stuff but they priced themselves out of the market.They tried to charge $500 for a Li-ion battery and $900 for a 220 to 12 V mains transformer; all for heir prtable flash unir Porty L1200. what t5he hell....
 
Hensel themselves speak of "unsatisfactory development of revenues over the last months" together with "permanent high investments into product development" as cause for them running out of money.
Under the protection of the insolvency procedure they intent to get the firm restructured and strengthened.
 
mgb74 said:
It seems to me (as an outside observer) that there has been a shift in lighting: studio electronic flash replaced by LEDs,
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Studio photographers have been replacing flash with LEDs?
 
faberryman said:
Studio photographers have been replacing flash with LEDs?
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A lot of product photography is being done with them now because they're easier to work with in some ways than strobe systems are. I think portrait work is still mostly strobes
 
chriscrawfordphoto said:
A lot of product photography is being done with them now because they're easier to work with in some ways than strobe systems are. I think portrait work is still mostly strobes
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Strobes will remain king with portraits I would imagine. Throw too much constant light at someone and they're going to start squinting at the camera after all. However I have seen more work with LEDs doing the bulk of the lifting and giving live light, while the strobes can add the brighter punchier light where needed. - Best of both worlds kind of view I guess?

Of course LEDs being able to throw enough light at a product without melting it before you finish your shot sure is nice, and the clear 'live preview' of a constant light does make a lot of product tasks easier.

At the end of the day however, I think that some of the biggest threats to the "Big amazing professional" gear sales and development is that those who are likely to work with it probably already have it, and those who don't are more likely to bump ISO on a newer camera a notch or two to make up for shortcomings on the 'lesser' gear they got cheaper.

I've gotten to use some of the expensive kit that could handle stupidly bright lights with insanely fast recharge, and yet I kept treating it like the slower cheaper stuff I personally owned... Probably because that was the habit I got into?
 
some motion picture lighting units have managed to reduce power drawn by using LED sources to the point that they can be plugged into domestic outlets rather than needing a diesel generator on a grip truck parked a block away (because of the noise). If you can get the light you need from a constant source, I would imagine that many pros would perfer the immediate visualization ability more than strobes. Cost of the equipment may still have to go down. The movie folks seldom are in a position to use strobes as they are taking 24 pictures every second.
 
Good, powerful, color-temperature controlled LED units are not cheap, either. Having matching color from all your sources (unless you're looking for a multicolor effect) is paramount in color product and portrait photography. Motion picture as well, although you might have more leeway because the image is moving.
 
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