Alien bees

[Ejazzle]

i see. Is the B400 a good way to start for my first bee? For some situations the flash may be 100' from my subject. is a b400 powerful enough?

 

[Shelly1204]

I'm going to replace all of my Bee's with Einsteins which have been announced. They are want the ABMax's promised to be but even better. I wouldn't buy a B1600 right now... I would wait for the Einsteins.

Sweet, well if you, or anyone else would like to sell their AB1600s when their Einsteins come in, let me know!

 

[Big Mike]

i see. Is the B400 a good way to start for my first bee? For some situations the flash may be 100' from my subject. is a b400 powerful enough?

It depends.
The GN (guide number) of the B400 (with standard reflector dish) is 118'. With the 11" 'long throw' reflector dish, it's said to be 220' (@ ISO 100)

To use the GN, you divide your distance by the GN, to get the f-stop required.
So at 100', you would need an aperture of 1.18...(probably larger than you can go).
If you use ISO 800 (three stops from 100), you would need an aperture of F3.3, which is still pretty big.

So I'd say that the B400 (with standard reflector) probably isn't enough to light up your subject from 100'.

Even for closer (more typical) applications, I usually recommend the B800 over the B400, simply because it's only $50 more.

The B800 with standard reflector has a GN of 172'.
So at ISO 100, you would need an aperture of F1.7. At ISO 800, you'd need F4.86, which is a lot more doable.

Of course, adding the tighter reflector dish will help. You may even be able to find an accessory to further tighten the light beam, thus giving you more reach.

If you really need to light a subject from 100' away, I'd suggest getting the most powerful light that you can.

 

[kkamin]

Why do you need your light 100' away from your subject? That seems absurdly far.