AnnieMacD wrote in post #18829879
Lovely portrait. What do you use to power the D2?
Thanks. The poses were fairly plain/traditional but that's the only way to get through so many people in the timeframe.
For power, I have 3 options I use, depending on the situation. The first is 110v AC power. I carry a handful of extension cords so if there's an outlet around I do my best to find and use it. AC power lets me run the strobes at the fastest recharging rate and of course eliminates the issue of running out of juice.
For battery power, I sometimes use the Paul C. Buff Vagabond mini. I have 2, so I can run each strobe off their own pack. They work quite well overall. I've never had an issue with these, aside from not being able to shoot fast at higher power outputs. It can take 2-3 seconds for the strobe to charge and be ready to shoot again if I have them cranked up high.
I also built my own powerpack, very similar to the Profoto BatPak. It uses 2 SLA batteries (similar to small motorcycle batteries) wired to a quality pure sine-wave inverter. It offers me nearly unlimited power on-site to run the strobes plus laptops, ipad, etc. The downside of it is that it is very heavy and like the Vagabonds the strobe need to be set to a lower recharge rate so they take a few seconds until they're ready to fire again.
The battery-powered strobes are obviously very convenient but I really needed the higher power strobes (1000ws) for certain jobs and the battery powered ones that I liked max out at 500ws. Taking along a small battery pack and plugging it in really adds little to the weight or setup time and works well for my needs.
