What are the good brands to get for Monolights?

[pixmedic]

ugh...
just get speedlights.
less power, sure....but more versatility in the ability to use them on camera (or on a flash bracket) as well as off camera.
my chinese made yongnuo 568EX's have been performing just as well for me as my OEM Nikon SB700, better than my SB600, and give me full TTL and HSS.


as far as actual studio lighting goes....
never used any. I do have a friend that has a nice little studio not too far from my house that uses a D800, all Nikkor pro lenses, and Flashpoint lighting. he has yet to have a problem with them in the 5 years he has had the studio. Other than that, my knowledge on this lighting debate is pretty much nil minus 3.

 

[Gavjenks]

^ Monolights aren't just for studios. I use them outdoors, too, with a portable AC inverter. There are several reasons why:

* In the day, speedlights aren't nearly as strong (at least not for the money) for overpowering the sun, if you want to.
* At night or dusk, the modeling lamps are really helpful.
* They cycle faster and power through an intensive photoshoot better.
* They're a lot easier and less finicky to hook up to modifiers.

Speedlights obviously have their place too. If I want to travel light, a speedlight and small umbrella on the same bracket gives great lighting that can be directional and soft, for much less carry space and weight. Corner of a purse-sized camera bag vs. huge backpack or vehicle. And they can usually have better motion freezing at low power.

It is nice to have both.



HSS doesn't matter if you have more power. The whole point of HSS is it compensates for less power by letting you black out ambient light with fast shutter speeds instead of by simply overpowering it. And TTL is nice, yes, but personally I don't tend to use flash much outside of scheduled shoots where I would normally be using manual exposure. That's just me. Also, I believe some monolights (including one of mine, though I don't remember the manual and don't use the feature) can do TTL with appropriate transmitters used.

 

[Roger3006]

Equipment you use to make a living with is like a dangerous game rifle. There is no such thing as overkill. Look at your competitors like dangerous game. They want your livelihood.

IMHO

Roger

 

[Gavjenks]

Equipment you use to make a living with is like a dangerous game rifle. There is no such thing as overkill. Look at your competitors like dangerous game. They want your livelihood.

I don't know about you, but when I photograph models, my competition is not typically standing in the same room with their own set of lights ready to jump in, sign a separate contract with the model, and start shooting within the 30 seconds it would take to calmly take a monolight off a stand and replace it with another monolight.

Nor would any model I've ever worked with say something like "GAWD! This shoot took 1 hour and 30 seconds, instead of 1 hour. I'm never working with you again you incompetent idiot." Maybe as a joke. If they did, we would probably get along pretty well.

 

[Roger3006]

Not a joke, you missed the point.

 

[Gavjenks]

Okay. Can you rephrase, then please / give an example to help me out?

 

[pixmedic]

Equipment you use to make a living with is like a dangerous game rifle. There is no such thing as overkill. Look at your competitors like dangerous game. They want your livelihood.

IMHO

Roger

using the biggest baddest piece of equipment doesn't necessarily mean it is the optimal working solution.
cost -vs- need is a huge factor.
you do NOT take an elephant gun hunting pheasants.
nor do you hunt quail with a 50 caliber bolt action sniper rifle.

our 568EX speedlights with shoot through umbrellas are more than sufficient for taking portraits.
we have yet to have a client look at our lighting and complain that we weren't using prophoto lights.
or even that we were using speedlights instead of studio monolights.

 

[EIngerson]

I love how the same guy goes out of his way to argue his point until he completely discredits himself. Every forum I've ever been on has "that guy", why should TPF be any different. I would ignore it and move to another thread, but he's doing the same thing in ALL the other threads too. He doesn't take photos because there isn't enough time in the day to do that and discredit himself here.

It's exhausting.

 

[Gavjenks]

He doesn't take photos because he can barely open the door through snow drifts and it's -20 windchill in his town right now

FTFY.

(By comparison, I suppose Ingerson is so busy out winning his various Pullitzer prizes in photography that he doesn't have time to actually justify any his claims.)

 

[Tee]

I make no secrets that I'm an Elinchrom guy (if I could only get sponsorship :mrgreen. I have 4 BXri monolights (three 500's, one 250) and various modifiers. Aside from buying 2 lights brand new, I built my arsenal of modifiers and additional lights by combing various buy and sell forums and saved an average of 30% of the original cost. I have used Alien Bees in the past and while I think they are a good fit for the budget conscious weekend warrior, I was not impressed with the build quality and "toy" feel. I know money is always an important factor when buying but that also has to be weighed against quality. My investment in Elinchrom products means less issues down the road. I have thousands of pops on my lights and I know I'm going to get consistency every time. When I researched lights I looked at it as a long term investment.

For outdoor work, I pair the moonlights with the Paul C. Buff portable battery pack. It's really no more hassle carrying a moonlight w/ soft box than it is speedlights w/ modifier. Just sling the battery pack over the shoulder and off you go.

 

[table1349]

Tell me, now many alien bees do you own? How many profotos, Elinchrom, Bowers, Norman, Hensel or any other brand of lighting do you own? Have you done your own tests? Hell have you even ever seriously used various brands of studio lighting or for that matter any serious use of any studio lighting?

I own two alienbees and an einstein. I don't own any of the others for precisely the reasons I am explaining here: I don't think they're worth the money. I HAVE used a profoto and a Bower before for a shoot, one while second shooting, and one just messing around with a friend's equipment. I found nothing particularly more pleasant or fluid or useful about working with either of them at all.

Yes they were noticeably sturdier and sleeker and tougher feeling. They also weighed about twice as much (as the alienbees, only a little bit more than einstein). That is all though.

Tell me what is your recipe for dealing with the infamous low power color shift issue of the Alienbees?

1) It's not that bad in the first place.
2) It rarely comes up, because I rarely want to dramatically change the power of the strobes during a single shoot, and I have tested to see at what levels the alienbees best match the einstein in cases where I want to use both.
3) If I am using only the alienbees together, and I do for some reason want to dramatically shift power, I could correct it in RAW conversion once to match and then just apply it to all the photos from the secon half of the shoot. It would take 5 minutes, tops.
4) The einstein is excellent and has no color issues I've ever seen in its color constancy mode. If I was using only those (still at 1/3 price of profotos and 1/2 price midrange strobes), I would never have any such problems at any power levels.


No, I don't think the elinchrom will outperform an einstein (which is what I would properly compare it to, not the B1600 which is very much an obsolete unit and a straw man IMO). It has narrower range, longer minimum duration (athletic shots or anything with motion at all, 1/2000 is not that powerful, there's a reason our nicer cameras are made go to 1/8000th), and most other stats look about equal.

Plus you're asking the wrong question anyway. It's not "will that Elinchrom outperform one Einstein?" It's "Will that one elinchrom outperform TWO Einsteins?" because that's what you can get for the same money.

1 is maybe debatable. The build quality might outweight the stats, and if Derrel is right about power levels, then maybe it has an edge there, etc. But two? No, absolutely not.


Full time? None (either way). How many full time businesses that used throwaway equipment as part of their business model have I been in in other industries? About 4. It's by no means a business strategy I just made up 5 minutes ago. It works just fine.

So long as nothing horrible happens when a piece of equipment fails, then there's nothing wrong with just allowing for units failing. This is NOT an appropriate business strategy if you're talking about high speed centrifuges, for example. if they fail they can kill everyone in the room. But if failure just means "oh the light stopped turning on, grab another one from the shelf and swap out," then it's fine.

One last question. Which Paul C. Buff lighting, be it Alienbees, Einsteins or White Lightings cost $50 per unit or did you just SWAG some figures together again with out having a clue of the real costs?

The cheap Chinese ones cost $50. The Einstein costs $500. I wrote out a scenario for both in different parts of the thread. Sorry about any confusion.
Einsteins probably make more sense, since the Chinese ones don't have all the features you might need like sufficient power or whatever (if they do, though, I would go for those probably). The plan for Einsteins is NOT to have 5 extras on hand. You only really need one extra of those, I'd say. They're quite nice. Significantly nicer than alienbees, which are themselves not at all "flimsy." You're not gonna have two break at once.

Man I sure hope that Iowa school has a good supply of those Cowboy Studio, Alienbee quality Cognitive Psychology researchers on hand. There going to need em.

I have no idea what this sentence means.

As clueless as a blond in a round room who was told to go sit in a corner.

I have had the Norman for over 30 years (5 heads) as I said before with no issues other than standard maintenance. I have had and used 4 Elinchromes for 12 years when I need portability, and with the exception of dropping a reflector and ruining it, they have given me NO problems. Haven't even had to replace a flash tube yet. Shoots your fuzzy math all to hell now don't it.

I don't need extras on hand because I have a product I know will work and continue to work. That is what they are designed and built for, to work today, tomorrow and every day after. They don't have planned obsolescence build into them or the mindset of their users. They are not for the weekend shooter for fun, but for those that want and need a quality product they can rely on, rather than having to keep spares around.

Tell you what, I'll just keep using my dependable lights and you just keep buying spares and we will both be happy.

 

[table1349]

Not a joke, you missed the point.

And you are surprised WHY?????

 

[Gavjenks]

Shoots your fuzzy math all to hell now don't it.

Uh no. Not really.

Perhaps you were not reading it very carefully, but my math was assuming exactly what you're saying. That's why I was comparing the high end lights without backups to the lower end lights with backups. That was taken into account.

It is still a fraction of the cost, even assuming the high end lights never break once in your entire career, and that the low end lights break yearly. And that's being super unfair to the low end lights, since they don't break anywhere close that often, AND they have warranties for longer than a year.

 

[table1349]

Shoots your fuzzy math all to hell now don't it.

Uh no. Not really.

Perhaps you were not reading it very carefully, but my math was assuming exactly what you're saying. That's why I was comparing the high end lights without backups to the lower end lights with backups. That was taken into account.

It is still a fraction of the cost, even assuming the high end lights never break once in your entire career, and that the low end lights break yearly. And that's being super unfair to the low end lights, since they don't break anywhere close that often, AND they have warranties for longer than a year.

 

[pixmedic]

so....
are we done here?
has the OP's question been answered?