Strobes for the clueless

So I don't know anything about flash. Well, I know a little, but not a lot.

I am use to using hot lights. As I have studied cinematography for a long while, I am good with lights that stay on forever.

Flash is like a mystery to me. It's like air, something that is not really tangible.

I want to start using flash, as it seems the norm for portraits. What are the top professional brands? Can I get by with 1 or 2 softboxes? Is 150 watt/seconds enough? I don't think I need massive 1000w/s strobes, but you never know.

Shooting medium format / 4x5 here...

I would also like something that I can port to where ever. I like medium to hard contrast, so like today, if I were shooting outside, I would use a 500-1000w lamp, because it is overcast.

Thoughts?

JohnRichard said:

Can I get by with 1 or 2 softboxes? Is 150 watt/seconds enough? I don't think I need massive 1000w/s strobes, but you never know.

Shooting medium format / 4x5 here...

I would also like something that I can port to where ever. I like medium to hard contrast, so like today, if I were shooting outside, I would use a 500-1000w lamp, because it is overcast.

Thoughts?

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I doubt you'd manage with 150ws and a softbox. Not for 4x5 and I doubt with MF. You can't just increase the shutter speed without increasing ambient light. In which case you might just use sunlight and forget the strobe.

The old Speedtron packs are cheap used. Heavy.

JohnRichard said:

I want to start using flash, as it seems the norm for portraits. What are the top professional brands?

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Bron(color), ProFoto, Elinchrom.
Search the web, and see what they offer to get an idea.

I see. Thanks for the details. I have been reading about that difference between powerpacks and monoblocs. I'll look at some of the Bowens/Alien Bees stuff...

Thanks!

I'm pretty happy with the Speedotron Blackline gear that I have gathered. Light modifiers for it are plentiful, and easily found, and what is not owned I can easily rent where I live. The heads are not all too big, so mounting them on a boom is not a big deal, like trying to mount a monolight on a boom.

It is certainly not the lightest, or most portable, but I rarerly take it out of my basement studio, and when I do, I set up and do theatre front of house portraits for some community threatre production or other, and it is consitent shooting with it all night long, as I get images of upwards of 40 cast members for some shows.

The best part about it, as pro's have moved to digital, and moved away from needing the flash power that LF needs to get any DOF, is that it can be found , to my mind, cheap, on the used market, and it seems to last forever. My 2401, which when fully isoated between channels offers 1200ws on two sockets, 800ws on two sockets and 400ws on two sockets, and must be 20 years old, and it still works just fine. I open it up and disconnect capacitors to turn it into a 800/400/200 rig when doing protraits and model work in my basement studio.

I have lived for years with battery powered flash, either as 283's or pack and head braun or metz rigs. I finally got sick of being half way though a session and then one would slow in it's recylce time, and a light then would not fire when the rest would. Or wanting a big softbox look, but without enough light to pump though it. So two or so years ago I blew about $1600 and now my rig has 4 heads, and a slew of modifiers to fit them, and all the power I could ever wish for, and more just a rental away, Hell, I have even found cheap air cases to lug it around in. The down side to having all of this is that I now use my truck to take all of my gear with me when on location with my flash rig.

I am more then happy with what I get shooting 160ISO portrait films in MF or LF with 800ws feeding a 36x48 soft box for evenly covering a couple, and then set them 4' off of the background. They are in focus, and I have enough DOF I am not paranoid if they move an inch so that thier eyes are no longer sharply in focus.

If whatever you buy does not have proportional modelling lights, then spend some of your money on a flash meter. I am sure if you are used to cinema, you are familar with what contrast ratios mean to a look.

powerpack lights you have to "bleed off" light often times by plugging in lights
and hide them to reduce the light output
monoblocks have a dial-in power ... so you adjust each light on its own.
it is useful ... (i like mine) but some folks swear by speedotrons too ( see above )

you might look into larson soffboxes, they sometimes have deep discounted clearance / sales ...

If I was clueless I wouldn't use a Strobe

A Stroboscope/Strobe is far harder to use than a flash gun, or studio flash head due to it's continuous pulsing output. I have a strobe that can react to the beat of music or have a fixed pulse rate, it's great for working with dancers etc. I can use it single flash as well.

The US use the term Strobe for anything that flashes, but really it's misnomer.

You really need lots of power for LF, I have a few flash heads, the most powerful now is a Bowens 750 and really that's not enough, I used Bowen & Elinchrom packs for commercial LF work, hiring in extra for larger shoots (ie shooting a Lamborghini replica in a studio set, or a fashion shoot with 4/5 models).

Ideally you need packs with enough power to be able to use f22/f32 for LF without them running flat out at full power. f16/f22 for MF.

Ian

Ian Grant said:

If I was clueless I wouldn't use a Strobe

A Stroboscope/Strobe is far harder to use than a flash gun, or studio flash head due to it's continuous pulsing output. I have a strobe that can react to the beat of music or have a fixed pulse rate, it's great for working with dancers etc. I can use it single flash as well.

The US use the term Strobe for anything that flashes, but really it's misnomer.

You really need lots of power for LF, I have a few flash heads, the most powerful now is a Bowens 750 and really that's not enough, I used Bowen & Elinchrom packs for commercial LF work, hiring in extra for larger shoots (ie shooting a Lamborghini replica in a studio set, or a fashion shoot with 4/5 models).

Ideally you need packs with enough power to be able to use f22/f32 for LF without them running flat out at full power. f16/f22 for MF.

Ian

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Sorry for the misnomer-
Well, I can't afford lots of power currently. Still working on a business loan.
Again, most likely because I come from studying motion picture, I tend to shoot wide open most of the time.

I totally understand the need to get DoF, but I like high-key, low-key, so so I really need a DoF of forever if the background is totally white or black?

What kind of power should I look at? I am reading about it now, and it seems that most people are using those [potty mouth] speedlights. I think they are WAY too complicated. On/Off, power up/down is all you need. I like simple.

You buy what you can, and beg borrow or rent what you need when needs be

I'd try and get a 2K pack and 2 heads, they sell quite cheaply at he moment, then a couple of 500-800 heads for fill in etc.

Ian

jnanian said:

powerpack lights you have to "bleed off" light often times by plugging in lights and hide them to reduce the light output

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Only very old ones.
Most have either a "black tube", i.e. discard the 'left over' or 'too much' power internally, or don't discard it at all, saving it for the next flash.

JohnRichard said:

I see. Thanks for the details. I have been reading about that difference between powerpacks and monoblocs. I'll look at some of the Bowens/Alien Bees stuff...

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Monoblocks are selfcontained units that combine a small powerpack connected to one tube.

Bowens are good.

I would be very careful about buying used: the capacitors may have gone, or nearly gone. It costs a bit more buying new, but may turn out to be cheaper in the end.

if you go the monolight route
look for something 500ws or higher ..
people tend to badmouth novatrons
but i have had a pair of their 300ws monolights
for about 10+years and never had trouble with them.
they see re-furbs from trade-ups through the manufacturer ( in tx )
for way-less than brand new.
i have been wanting to compliment my pair with a second pair of 500ws ones
but i tend to have other expenses get in the way ...
bowens are good as well ...

if you are doing "location" portraits and need a battery-pack type system
you might look into lumedyne lights. their batteries have a 10year life and are pro-rated as well.
i have had a 244 with a pair of heads ( for 20+ years ) i use for event &C and location portraits, and it works well ...
with the large/booster battery a single head will put out 400ws of light, and there is a "handle-unit" that allows
for tweaking complete control down to 2ws so with a second light you can split lighting if you want to ...
or just use it as fill or a big blast.

both the novatrons and lumedynes have modern/low trigger voltage ( like the rest of the new stuff )
incase at a later date you need to use them with a d***l camera --- you won't fry the camera when you use the lights ...

as q.g said, buying used can be kind of risky, if previous owner didn't form the capacitors
( fired off the flash ever few weeks ) you will be screwed, and end up with problems.

good luck!
john

Q.G. said:

Only very old ones.
Most have either a "black tube", i.e. discard the 'left over' or 'too much' power internally, or don't discard it at all, saving it for the next flash.

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good to know, i haven't shopped for lights since the dark ages
and all the people i assisted for had me "hide the light" ...

jnanian said:

good to know, i haven't shopped for lights since the dark ages
and all the people i assisted for had me "hide the light" ...

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I use Elinchroms and I'm very pleased with them. !50 w/s heads won't produce enough light with a softbox for use with 4x5 and probably not with MF.

If you are on a tight budget look at the Calumet Genesis lights. They are pretty reasonably priced and seem to have a true power rating. Alien Bees aren't rated properly, but may also be worth considering if you are on a tight budget.

You can read more about the Calumet Genesis here:

http://photography-on-the.net/

Just do a search for Calumet Genesis. There are tons of posts about them.

Ok, so 150w/s is not enough to use with a softbox. But what about a not softbox? The local camera store has a 2 umbrella kit for cheap with 2 150w/s heads. I would love more power, but its not dooable at the current moment. I may just have to wait. Will 150w/s be enough bare bulb? Or in a reflector/umbrella type deal? With an umbrella I can always soften the light by shooting through...

JohnRichard said:

Ok, so 150w/s is not enough to use with a softbox. But what about a not softbox? The local camera store has a 2 umbrella kit for cheap with 2 150w/s heads. I would love more power, but its not dooable at the current moment. I may just have to wait. Will 150w/s be enough bare bulb? Or in a reflector/umbrella type deal? With an umbrella I can always soften the light by shooting through...

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Okay John let me put it this way - Don;t waste your money! You need more power than that sans soft box.

donbga said:

Okay John let me put it this way - Don;t waste your money! You need more power than that sans soft box.

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Best advice I've heard all day.

john

is there a pro store near you can rent lights from ?
it might help ...

john

I'm just starting out in studio lighting, so don't take my advice as Gospel.

I have the bottom-end Elinchrom D-lite 4 kit with two 400 ws monolights in small (60cm square) softboxes. I went with Elinchrom because the lights are highly adjustable, compatible with local rental stock, and because I have a bias for buying the basic model of a good brand over the better models of a budget brand.

You can do a lot with a simple kit, but eventually you run out of light, and as others have said, with LF you will quite quickly hit a situation when you need smaller apertures for DOF. That said, for single-light portraits of single people, the apertures I'm using in MF would be fine for LF too. More people, or large objects like cars cannot be photographed all-in-focus without going to high ISOs which negates the benefit of the larger format.

One trick: the two-400 ws strobes in dinky softboxes become a very useful 800 ws strobe in a striplight if you simply put them next to each other (sideways or vertically). For family groups this can extend the usefulness of relatively underpowered strobes a fair bit. Fill/background/hair lights can be jury-rigged from 35mm flash units if the basic main-subject light is right.

Broncolor & Elinchrom are very good & on the expensive side. To quote the Ries ad & Brett Weston "simply the best".
There are a lot of trade-offs between monolights & power pack units.
Power pack units are heavier, rely on cables to connect the heads to the PS(4 heads=4 cables) 1-synch cable. And you better turn it off before you unplug a head or you can be knocked on your ass.
Limited by the output of the PS and the total power is divided into as many heads as you have plugged in. IE:1200 WS = 4 heads 300WS each. And if the PS fails nothing works.
Monolights contain individual power supplies so if one fails it's the only one. If you only need two lights for a job you're not lugging a 40# PS. Most of the newer units are continuously variable, not stepped output and have built in slaves. You will have a power cord for each unit.

As was said above, don't waste your money on the 150WS kit. Save up & get something with POWER. With monolights you can add as you go along.
For what it's worth the ratings on these things aren't always a good indicator of how well they deliver light.
WS is how many Watts a unit can deliver to the tube for a given amount of time & has nothing to do with how efficient the reflector/flashtube is.

I've used Calumet Travelites and Alien Bees with great success. There's a new gizmo on the market called "RadioPoppers" (wireless flash triggers like Pocket Wizards) that were designed to use Canon ETTL wirelessly for flash triggering. They work with the data port on the Alien Bees allowing you to control the light output of the strobes from the camera. Very cool !!! I'm considering trading in my Calumets for Alien Bees for this reason. I do a LOT of studio work. I would also suggest that you get as much power as you can afford. Having too much is better than not enough.

I was told if you wanted to get monoblocs, to not get anything lower than 500w. This place is used a lot by pros and they've written a bit of a guide. I wonder though if they're referring to Elinchrom or Bowens when they make a comment about the wattage of a "top European brand"
http://www.dragonimage.com.au/testiomnials.asp?id=3

The comment is about flash efficiency, and the test not reproducing what the manufacturer claimed.

But all you can really go by is the power rating in Ws. What aperture that will be at what distance using what film depends not only on the efficiency of the unitl, but also on what reflector you are using, and is not exact science.

So ignore anything that is said about stuff like that, and only look at the Ws rating.
Though it will tell you very little about how efficient the flash unit is, it's the only basis for comparison.

Whether anything below 500 Ws will be good or not depends on what you want to use the thing for.
Remember too that when using monoblocs, the power is not distributed over as many heads as you are using, but is combined.
So using three 500 Ws monoblocs you'll have more light at your disposal than when using one 1200 Ws pack.