Gavjenks
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- May 9, 2013
- Messages
- 2,976
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- Iowa City, IA
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My point ultimately is not that everyone ever should buy alienbees. It is just a brand that along with profot, as you say TiredIron, are at two extremes (almost), to help prove a point: which is that "zomg it's so rugged and quality!" is often overemphasized to the point of clearly being uneconomical, it almost gets a little fetishistic.
And that's fine, in a way! I am guilty myself sometimes. But if so, at least call it what it is: sometimes you just want to have fancy toys that you can either brag about or polish lovingly with your microfiber cloth late at night with a wild grin on your face. Yet in reality, they might be pointlessly overbuilt or more luxury than you ever would need.
* Cars that can reach 200 miles per hour even though the speed limit is 55 almost everywhere.
* Houses that have rooms you don't know what to do with.
* Pens that can write in space despite the fact that you're definitely never going to go to space.
* ...and lenses or monolights that are built to survive mortar fire, despite the fact that all you're actually ever going to do with them is unpack them from a nicely padded box and put them motionless on a pole and then put them pack in a nicely padded box. Honestly, my monolights could be made out of cardboard and I'd still probably not break them.
If it makes you feel good, and you can afford it, then great. Do it. Be happy, I don't care. But don't pretend that it's actually "THE logical choice" or whatever, because when you get to the high end quality in anything, it's not practically logical or economical, pretty much ever.
Elinchrom and Bower are both great brands, and definitely do exist along a continuum in between Buff and profoto, yes, as you say. All fine choices, really, depending on what you want.
But at the end of the day? If you were actually a hyper logical robot out to make the absolute best money choice you possibly could, all factors considered? Honestly, I think you would make the most profits probably buying Chinese crap monolights, 2-3 more of them than you need at any given time, and simply expecting them to fail at some fairly quick rate, and yet still saving money even if 10 of them break, over the course of a decade or two. The fact is, you can buy 20+ crap Chinese strobes for one really nice brand. And if you use 3 lights? That's 60 Chinese strobes you could afford instead. Sorry, but in no realm of reality are you going to somehow break more than 60 Chinese strobes in any amount of time.
That doesn't mean that's what we should all do. There's real value in "not feeling bad about your equipment" in and of itself. But it's worth acknowledging, for context, that that's what you're paying for: happiness. KNOW what you are spending your money on, if you spend it: Largely just feeling good about your gear is a big chunk of the price tag, as much as real utility.
And that's fine, in a way! I am guilty myself sometimes. But if so, at least call it what it is: sometimes you just want to have fancy toys that you can either brag about or polish lovingly with your microfiber cloth late at night with a wild grin on your face. Yet in reality, they might be pointlessly overbuilt or more luxury than you ever would need.
* Cars that can reach 200 miles per hour even though the speed limit is 55 almost everywhere.
* Houses that have rooms you don't know what to do with.
* Pens that can write in space despite the fact that you're definitely never going to go to space.
* ...and lenses or monolights that are built to survive mortar fire, despite the fact that all you're actually ever going to do with them is unpack them from a nicely padded box and put them motionless on a pole and then put them pack in a nicely padded box. Honestly, my monolights could be made out of cardboard and I'd still probably not break them.
If it makes you feel good, and you can afford it, then great. Do it. Be happy, I don't care. But don't pretend that it's actually "THE logical choice" or whatever, because when you get to the high end quality in anything, it's not practically logical or economical, pretty much ever.
Elinchrom and Bower are both great brands, and definitely do exist along a continuum in between Buff and profoto, yes, as you say. All fine choices, really, depending on what you want.
But at the end of the day? If you were actually a hyper logical robot out to make the absolute best money choice you possibly could, all factors considered? Honestly, I think you would make the most profits probably buying Chinese crap monolights, 2-3 more of them than you need at any given time, and simply expecting them to fail at some fairly quick rate, and yet still saving money even if 10 of them break, over the course of a decade or two. The fact is, you can buy 20+ crap Chinese strobes for one really nice brand. And if you use 3 lights? That's 60 Chinese strobes you could afford instead. Sorry, but in no realm of reality are you going to somehow break more than 60 Chinese strobes in any amount of time.
That doesn't mean that's what we should all do. There's real value in "not feeling bad about your equipment" in and of itself. But it's worth acknowledging, for context, that that's what you're paying for: happiness. KNOW what you are spending your money on, if you spend it: Largely just feeling good about your gear is a big chunk of the price tag, as much as real utility.
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