Which portable strobes?

[MatthewSimes]

I've recently been working as an assistant to a local wedding photographer. I have really started to be amazed by the quality of light produced by the Elinchrom Quadra strobes we've been using.

My question is- Are these one of the standards for portable lighting, and what other brands do you guys recommend? On BH Photo, they really only stock the Quadras, and a set of lumidyne which seem much more basic (which I've also used).

 

[tirediron]

Elinchrom is indeed one of the names in lighting. I don't use them (I'm a Speedotron guy), but they're good. Choosing a lighting system is really no different than choosing a camera system. Profoto, Elinchrom, Broncolor, Speedotron, Dynalite are some of the top names. Look at the equipment each has, and compare it to your needs. Do they have all of the accessories you want? Does the price fit your wallet? Really, it's hard to go wrong with any of them, and the quality of light you're seeing is not so much due to the lights as it is to the modifiers and the photographer's skill in using them. You can do some really nice work with plain old speedlights!

 

[Antithesis]

You can't go wrong with Profoto's... they are outrageously expensive, but a set will last you decades. I've used the Acute's a handful of times as well as their D1's, and they are both extremely well built and reliable. But, again... a set of Acute's is $4-5k without radio slaves or modifiers.

I am looking at getting a set of 3-4 einstein's with cybercommanders/battery packs at about a third of what a good profoto system would cost, and it'll be a far more versatile. The light quality will be similar, but build quality and portability go down a notch. I wanted to get a set of D1's for weddings and interiors, but almost everywhere I looked everyone suggested the Einstein's as overall better flash heads at less than half the cost. Check a couple of youtube videos on the cybercommander/einsteins. It looks like a great overall system.

And yes, I know people rag on Paul C. Buff equipment, but a lot of their stuff is really clever. Profoto's and Broncolors are nice, but you are paying a huge premium for the name, plus a slight increase in build quality and reliability (and maybe a few degrees more color consistency, which means little for wedding photogs).

 

[Derrel]

The Quadra is a brilliantly engineered location lighting system. It was designed to capture a specific niche in the market, and it has done well. They set the price very reasonably, and have undercut other big name makers. The whole idea is to capture people and get them into "the brand". If you like the Quadra's design ethos, you can also buy knock-offs made in China/Taiwan for 1/4 of the money, and perhaps buy 2x as many units, and thus have spares, as well as,well, more units to work with.

Jinbei is the offshore company that has taken the Quadra knock-off and run with it. Jinbei Discovery DC-600 review | Lighting Rumours

There is also another company selling what might or might not be the Jinebei units in the UK, under another name.

Antithesis has another idea; Einsteins and their portable battery/sine wave inverters....not as "elegant" in design as the Quadra's pack-and-head system with the self-contained battery IN THE PACK...but, very workable, and also a good INDOOR/studio monolight system in its own right. So, a PLUS for the idea ofAC-first type monolights, run off of battery/sine wave inverters. The Paul C. Buff company's Vagbond Mini is really small and affordable!

DynaLite is a good brand too, and has their Jackrabbit packs. "The Dyna-Lite Jackrabbit Pack II contains Nickel Metal Hydride Battery Cells. It can power 140 full power pops when connected to the Dyna-Lite UNI400JRg monolight. It recycles in 6.5 seconds, when used at 320 watt/seconds on a full charge.- See more at: Jackrabbit II ? Dynalite

There is a TON of lighting stuff out there. FINDING it is tricky, but Calumet Photographic and B&H Photo both stock a lot of good stuff.

I understand the lure of the Quadra system, I really do; it's an elegant engineering system, and it's made well, and it's sexy. GOOD flash gear can last two decades, easily, but is expensive. There are a lot of options, at different price points. I think the "quality of the light" issues are overstated about 99% of the time, and the quality of the light modifier is more what people literally "see" when they see pictures shot with a specific flash. For example: have you EVER seen an entire shoot done with Elinchrom Rangers, and then the SAME shoot, done with say, Alien Bees. Uh...no.

Shoot one set-up, 20 shots, with a 400 W-S flash head in a big 60 inch umbrella and do it with ProFoto,Speedotron,DynaLite,and Alien Bee flash units. I bet it would be impossible to visually pick out which flash head made which shots with anything more than random chance odds.

 

[Antithesis]

Shoot one set-up, 20 shots, with a 400 W-S flash head in a big 60 inch umbrella and do it with ProFoto,Speedotron,DynaLite,and Alien Bee flash units. I bet it would be impossible to visually pick out which flash head made which shots with anything more than random chance odds.

I know people that can see really, really minor color shifts between flash heads. Hell, I could probably do it as I spend sixty hours a week color correcting images, and have been for a long time. That being said, we could probably only make a reasonable assumption that the higher end stuff will simply be more consistent. I don't think anyone would be able to actually differentiate between brands.

It doesn't really matter though if you use them for events, as you will have very little control over the ambient light. Usability and durability become more important, and of course budget. If a handful of speedlights is going to be more useful simply because it weighs a tenth of what a pack and heads would weigh, it might be the overall best option.