What is a "Monolight"?

[BuS_RiDeR]

Which I am planning to look up as soon as I'm finished this post...

I took this from a reply Derrel made in a different thread...

The Flashpoint M-series monolights have a small, 15 ounce battery pack option, which makes them different from most other monolights...

Can someone tell me the difference between a monolight and a strobe? in plain English? Is it that a monolight only has one flashtube in it?

off to google now...

 

[Geaux]

"A strobe is a flash. A monolight is a flash. They are one and the same. Some flashes have more exacting requirements for how hot the light burns and how long it'll last but its the same thing. The housing, modification and power are what make the difference between whether the strobe is considered a hot-shoe, a monolight or a flash head with powerpack.

Monolights are flash units that tend to contain power converters and fans inside their housing, a la Paul C Buff units (such as AlienBees or White Lightnings). These units simply need to be plugged into the appropriate AC source (such as a wall outlet). They tend to contain controls on the back of the housing for things like modeling lights or output strength (1/32 all the way up to full 100% power on the ones I have).

Contrast that (pun intended) with flash heads/power packs. These units tend to be more professional in terms of the workload they can handle over their lifespan. These units require a powerpack that plugs into an AC source and then each flash head has a power cord that connects it back to the powerpack. The output of the flash can generally be controlled to some degree from the powerpack. Sometimes you control the intensity of the lights by choosing which powerpack outlet to plug the flash heads into. Sometimes you actually have dials or sliders or something for each powerpack outlet so it doesn't matter which light is plugged in, you can make it the "key" light or simply turn it up or down to suite your lighting needs.

Both monolights and flash heads that connect to a powerpack tend to require some base; often those bases are tripods. Normally these lights cannot stand on their own, they need some kind of support under them.

Lastly small, portable flash units that mount to hot shoes are what most people I know when they use the term "flash". Those flashes come in varieties like the Canon 580EX, 550EX, 480EX, etc. Those units generally have a replaceable internal powersource (AA batteries) but some of them can accept DC power from an external source (although I don't know of any with their own internal converter so I assume most flashes with hot shoe connections wouldn't work with AC power sources). These units also tend to need some kind of support. This could be a tripod with a flash stand (these stands actually ship with Canon flashes) or a flash bracket or just the hot shoe connection that is on top of most SLR cameras (and many digicams)."

After a quick google search "Monolights vs Strobes"

 

[Village Idiot]

Generally the heads of a pack an head system are smaller and weigh less than a monolight since the power source is not part of the light. This can be an advtange when you're adding larger modifiers that add weight to the light or when you have an assitant with skinny arms holding the stand & light.