Adorama Rovelight RL 600, thoughts?

Went out with the Rovelight today for a high school tennis varsity and jv picture day. Coach wanted to shoot the team pictures first ... So I decided to shoot at f8 ISO 500 1/640 Rovelight was 15 ft away at full power. Shot like 10 pops then shot individuals . Using a 70-200f4 lens ... 1/500: f4 ISO 500 focal length135mm . Rovelight was 10ft away at 1/1 -3 power. Rovelight was working and I finished the job. I probably did 100 pops at full power for that job. So I started to play around with the light . Tried killing the sun with settings at 1/6000 f4 ISO 350 .... Then it happened. The strobe was like 5 ft away from the subject popping at full power and the subject was dark. Clouds were dramatic as I planned it.....I saw the unit flashed but the pic showed the sky per my exposure but no flash on the subject..... I had to move the unit 2 ft away from the subject to properly exposed her. So is this normal when you get to high shutter speeds the Rovelight at full power emits really really low power in hss? Is it the battery? The studio bought the package at Adorama that came with an extra batt.

May be stupid question but which stand do you use for RL600B with PCB 47" ? I use JL stand but it won't fit right. The whole unit keep tilting down ! Thanks

BJ_Nguyen wrote in post #17771582
May be stupid question but which stand do you use for RL600B with PCB 47" ? I use JL stand but it won't fit right. The whole unit keep tilting down ! Thanks

I use this stand and it is heavy duty, never had any issues....https://www.cheetahsta​nd.com …-C12-p/c12.htm&Click=1197

Hi, Assuming everything is working as designed, the Rovelight/Jinbei HD600 emits exactly the same light energy when set to 1/1 full power, irrespective of whether it's set to Normal or 'H'. (Pulsing true HSS is worse in this regard, but gains by having no Gradient.) Below 1/1 the two modes depart, Normal getting briefer, 'H' getting smaller amplitude but staying at approx 7.8 ms duration.

Above your max sync speed two things change. First is the camera's timing; for Supersync to work, the flash must start early. Immediately this wastes a lot of light energy, the peak in fact. More than that, the flash light returning from the subject is now partially blocked by both moving (carefully blacked) shutter blades - wasting more energy.

A typical drop in flash energy actually reaching the sensor when Supersync (tail) is in actual operation is c 2.5 to 3 stops! (varies with kit eg triggers etcetc).

. . . at least, that's my current take on things. Cheers

bobbyz wrote in post #17771393
Would it be possible to do same shots at full power at increasing shutter speeds but same f-stop and ISO? This is what I could call a perfect exposed bg and then strobe matching it (almost). There is shadow on the bottom and i think that is due to the gradient where there is less strobe power on the bottom of the frame.

I want to see how much this strobe can handle the sunny outdoor situation. My Einstein which is similar power only lets me match sun at 1/200. I don't shoot much in sun now a days but always nice to know about the available options with newer strobes.

Perhaps I could try but the rain here has been horrendous! Honestly, I did about 60 kids in about 15 minutes. It was sit down, look here, smile, look sharp? Good enough! I pretty much eyeballed the whole thing. I needed these photos before our open house for our classes (I'm a full time teacher) and really I just wanted to play a bit with my gear to give them something out of the ordinary. Parents enjoyed them.

If the weather cooperates I'll try to see if I can do a better test. I do know that from my experience if I continue to up the shutter speeds the subject just gets darker. I'm not too sure about the gradient though. When I do studio dance shots, I do get a gradient of about -0.75 at it's darkest point but since I'm in studio and on seamless, I'm often PP the background anyhow to clean it up.

flowrider wrote in post #17771778
Perhaps I could try but the rain here has been horrendous! Honestly, I did about 60 kids in about 15 minutes. It was sit down, look here, smile, look sharp? Good enough! I pretty much eyeballed the whole thing. I needed these photos before our open house for our classes (I'm a full time teacher) and really I just wanted to play a bit with my gear to give them something out of the ordinary. Parents enjoyed them.

If the weather cooperates I'll try to see if I can do a better test. I do know that from my experience if I continue to up the shutter speeds the subject just gets darker. I'm not too sure about the gradient though. When I do studio dance shots, I do get a gradient of about -0.75 at it's darkest point but since I'm in studio and on seamless, I'm often PP the background anyhow to clean it up.

Thanks. I think yours and OceanRipple answers that what I was thinking. There is a drop of power like and long flash duration strobe.

OceanRipple* wrote in post #17771770
Hi, Assuming everything is working as designed, the Rovelight/Jinbei HD600 emits exactly the same light energy when set to 1/1 full power, irrespective of whether it's set to Normal or 'H'. (Pulsing true HSS is worse in this regard, but gains by having no Gradient.) Below 1/1 the two modes depart, Normal getting briefer, 'H' getting smaller amplitude but staying at approx 7.8 ms duration.

Above your max sync speed two things change. First is the camera's timing; for Supersync to work, the flash must start early. Immediately this wastes a lot of light energy, the peak in fact. More than that, the flash light returning from the subject is now partially blocked by both moving (carefully blacked) shutter blades - wasting more energy.

A typical drop in flash energy actually reaching the sensor when Supersync (tail) is in actual operation is c 2.5 to 3 stops! (varies with kit eg triggers etcetc).

. . . at least, that's my current take on things. Cheers

well..... sounds like the unit I have been using is pretty defective then. Will call Adorama to replace it.

Used one 60in umbrella to light background and my daughter.

Not sure if this issue has been discussed but the light's output inconsistency is driving me bonkers. I really love the strobe, its portability, power output, ease of setup and tear down. However, all the attributes result in big compromise to the quality of the images. Here are samples for the last family session at the beach. These are SOOC jpgs from 2nd SD card (5Diii). If I remembered correctly, the power was set to 1/2 and shot with Phottix Luna Octa softbox.

2 seconds apart successive shots

EmaginePixel wrote in post #17774561
Not sure if this issue has been discussed but the light's output inconsistency is driving me bonkers. I really love the strobe, its portability, power output, ease of setup and tear down. However, all the attributes result in big compromise to the quality of the images. Here are samples for the last family session at the beach. These are SOOC jpgs from 2nd SD card (5Diii). If I remembered correctly, the power was set to 1/2 and shot with Phottix Luna Octa softbox.

2 seconds apart successive shots

Again, I waited 4 seconds. 2nd shot is the keeper.. oh but the light.

My guess would be there's no way it recycled in that time. For a full pop flash, check the recycle time in the manual

EmaginePixel wrote in post #17774561
Not sure if this issue has been discussed but the light's output inconsistency is driving me bonkers. I really love the strobe, its portability, power output, ease of setup and tear down. However, all the attributes result in big compromise to the quality of the images. Here are samples for the last family session at the beach. These are SOOC jpgs from 2nd SD card (5Diii). If I remembered correctly, the power was set to 1/2 and shot with Phottix Luna Octa softbox.

2 seconds apart successive shots

Again, I waited 4 seconds. 2nd shot is the keeper.. oh but the light.

To me it looks like strobe never fired for any of these shots. You are shooting f11, ISO100. Why 1/2 power? I would be more like full power for these.

EmaginePixel wrote in post #17774561
Not sure if this issue has been discussed but the light's output inconsistency is driving me bonkers. I really love the strobe, its portability, power output, ease of setup and tear down. However, all the attributes result in big compromise to the quality of the images. Here are samples for the last family session at the beach. These are SOOC jpgs from 2nd SD card (5Diii). If I remembered correctly, the power was set to 1/2 and shot with Phottix Luna Octa softbox.

2 seconds apart successive shots

Again, I waited 4 seconds. 2nd shot is the keeper.. oh but the light.

Were you in snail or Rabbit recycling? And I guess you don't leave the unit in 'H' when you don't need to; ie you were in Normal mode.
It may be an incomplete re-cycle issue.
Certainly when I was measuring the durations, I found the areas-under-the-curve to be remarkably constant for any given Normal Mode setting - albeit, I was firing slowly. So I'm a little surprised by your finding. What I did notice was that the increments were not smooth - on my particular unit, 1/8th power was down nearly 1/3rd of a stop - but it was highly reproducible!

Try the Rabbit setting & be more patient if possible. Cheers

OceanRipple* wrote in post #17774584
Were you in snail or Rabbit recycling? And I guess you don't leave the unit in 'H' when you don't need to; ie you were in Normal mode.
It may be an incomplete re-cycle issue.
Certainly when I was measuring the durations, I found the areas-under-the-curve to be remarkably constant for any given Normal Mode setting - albeit, I was firing slowly. So I'm a little surprised by your finding. What I did notice was that the increments were not smooth - on my particular unit, 1/8th power was down nearly 1/3rd of a stop - but it was highly reproducible!

Try the Rabbit setting & be more patient if possible. Cheers

Hmm... good point. I wasn't in high sync mode for sure, made that mistake before. But I did have it set to snail mode, figure that will charge up the capacitors fully. Ok, let me try the rabbit mode and see if there's difference.

The reason for 1/2 power because of recycle time. Had I shot this in full power, the variance will be even greater... 2 stop or more.

Again ..... went out on a job.... HSS failed. Resulted to using a variable nd filter and just used in manually.

Contacted Helen in another forum.... we will see if they will replace the unit. The portability of this unit is pretty amazing.
Sure beats lugging an AB1600 and a Vagabond II battery pack.

EmaginePixel wrote in post #17774594
Hmm... good point. I wasn't in high sync mode for sure, made that mistake before. But I did have it set to snail mode, figure that will charge up the capacitors fully. Ok, let me try the rabbit mode and see if there's difference.

The reason for 1/2 power because of recycle time. Had I shot this in full power, the variance will be even greater... 2 stop or more.

You mean pop to pop power output variation?