Who wants a free Broncolor monolight?

[Alpha]

I have an older model but very solid Broncolor monolight that I've decided to give away here. I thought about selling it but would rather just see it go to a good home. There are so many people here who are dying to shoot with real lights but can't afford to and end up wasting their money on hot lights or cheap, weak strobes that break easily.

A couple words about the light:
It's a Broncolor S80. It looks kind of like the older style Impact series lights, but it uses the newer Pulso line of modifiers. It's 600 w/s of real power. It's very sturdy and extremely reliable. I have used it on shoots with other photographers where we went for long enough that their lights overheated but it just kept on going. The color temp is pretty spot on across the board. Recycle times are good. I don't know a hell of a lot about the flash duration but I've never had any problems with curtain banding. That could be because most of my lenses have leaf shutters, however. Power adjusts down to 1/16th. The modeling light and flash tube are used but in good working order. It has a vented 5600K UV dome over the tube. I will include the plastic cover for the flash tube and a Wescott speed ring with the correct insert, plus an extra Pulso mount insert. Downsides are that modifiers are very expensive, and flash tubes are very expensive as well (they can run into the hundreds). I haven't shopped for a replacement tube in a while, but with a little research you can find one. It will accept a 600 w/s flash tube from the somewhat later Minicom series, if I remember correctly. That said, if you wanted to put a softbox on rather than buy modifiers you can hit the ground running.

If you're interested, please reply here with a little bit about your shooting and what you would use the light for!

 

[MLeeK]

Can I nominate someone? I have a couple someone's in mind!

 

[Alpha]

Sure!

 

[gryffinwings]

I'd love to have a free monolight, I've personally never been to much of a fan of flash, and since I'd like to get into taking pictures for people a monolight would be great to have indoors when I don't want to use flash.

 

[MLeeK]

A monolight is flash.

 

[IByte]

Can I nominate someone? I have a couple someone's in mind!

Awe Mleek you are going to sponsore moi? Lol

 

[rexbobcat]

A monolight is flash.

I think he is thinking it's a hot light.

 

[Stradawhovious]

I would love a shot at this. I've been into photography for about a year and a half now, and have learned quite a bit. I have a few speedlights, but no real powerful flash, and it is rather limiting. It would be great to have something with a bit more power for shots, but with two kids and a mortgage the toys fund is a bit
light. As far as the type of photography i do, I'm really just trying to learn at this stage and am dabbling in portrait, group shots, product style photography and high speed.

If you send it my way, it would get a good home with a lot of use. It would be a great tool for me to experiment with light.

 

[SamSpade1941]

This is something I would like to put my name into the hat for as well, the only flash I own is the one that came built into my camera, I cant afford to buy a speed light or anything else for that matter in the flash/ lighting department. Its just not in the realm of possibility for me, the wife's medical needs have to come first so any hobby stuff is strictly tertiary, I could use the light for shooting portraits and small items that I like to photo. It would be a nice tool have and experiment with.

 

[o hey tyler]

I'd be into it. I get to use some Broncolor monolights at work and they are very durable and high quality. Wouldn't at all mind having one for my personal rig. And I sure know I would get a ton of use out of it paired with my AB800.

 

[sm4him]

I've thought all night about whether to throw my hat in the ring for this. I would LOVE to have it, and I think it could really help me improve, but I'll say up front that I've already been the recipient of one of pixmedic's free lenses, so I was hesitant to put my name in for this as well.

But I guess I will anyway, because I really could use it. I've been in the process of setting up a little, tiny "home studio" not to do anything professional, but just to LEARN more about portrait photography. This past year, I think I've really improved a good bit with the photography in my "comfort zone"--macro, florals, and to some degree abstracts. Not that I'm good at those, but at least I have a bit of a handle on what I need to do. But portrait photography has always scared me! So, this year my goal is to learn portrait photography (and HDR, but that's another story) at least well enough that I'd feel comfortable doing it if asked. A friend has asked me to do (re-do, actually) her daughter's senior portraits, and just that freaks me out!

Anyway, I have a D5100, a Yongnuo speedlight, a really, really cheap, small shoot-through umbrella and a couple of really cheap light stands. I do have an adapter so I can put my speedlight on the light stand, and wireless triggers so I can use it the speedlight off camera.

I'd hoped to buy some lighting and flash accessories in the next few months, but that's not going to happen now. I'm a single mom of two boys that I'm trying to put through college and some recent events have put an end to any extra spending for the foreseeable future.

So yeah, I'd love to have it. But mostly I think I've gotten my free thing and it should go to someone else.

 

[jake337]

I would love to have a real flash.....

I shoot mainly for fun, just a hobbyist. But I would love to have a 3rd light into the mix as I currently use two sb600s. My main love is portraits whether it be candid or posed.

 

[jake337]

Can I nominate someone? I have a couple someone's in mind!

Me? (Please be me!)

 

[MLeeK]

Hmmmm... I had thought of sm4him and miiLovely (I THINK that's the name!) quick off, but there are definitely quite a few! Put names in a hat and draw!

 

[Alpha]

I should add that you really really need to already own a softbox or be able to buy one to make use of this light. You can occasionally find cheap Broncolor modifiers on eBay, but to give you an idea of how obscene the prices are, a standard 70 degree reflector retails for more than $250. A replacement flash tube retails on Adorama for about $175. Broncolor makes some of the best (and in my opinion probably the best) lights money can buy, but they have a price to match. With that in mind, this is probably not the right flash for someone who is extremely financially challenged. In other words, if you think you would have to just stop using it entirely when the flash tube dies, it's probably not for you. Think of this like you would think of someone giving away an older model Porsche for free. Sounds like a great deal but the maintenance alone can be prohibitively expensive for some folks.