POTN Aussie Club #7 - Feng, where's my invoice?

Nah If I read that again I will mix up my lines for the play...

beside I am surrounded by three and a half foot of blond locks now so my brain power is been sapped

justAL wrote in post #8755267
Is that the F1.2 model or the F3.5 - 5.6?

ed. wrote in post #8755286
it's the new F/1L IS USM

Say what?

ed. wrote in post #8755348
Nice shot clarry bit less compression would do it better justice though.

Yeah, I know, but lazy, these are the Lightroom presets

Here's another two. One version with added estrogen!

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Yeah, I'm going to the game Going over in about an hour and a half I think. Got my gear in my Brazillion Dollar Home Anyone else going?

coalcliff wrote in post #8755385
Nah If I read that again I will mix up my lines for the play...

beside I am surrounded by three and a half foot of blond locks now so my brain power is been sapped

there wasn't much there to start with

S7000 wrote in post #8755396
Say what?

20-700 instead of 70-200

@ Ed
@ Glenn, have fun!
@Clarrie, did you brighten the grooms and the ladies in post they seem to be lacking black depth?

Here is a snap of the new locks, just a casual shot with the 60mm macro/portrait lens and once bounced off the ceiling flash. Shoot thru maiden hair fern to hide the trackky suit and add depth to the image

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Should do! I forgot to print out the email just incase but if they were so clear about it then I should be fine.

coalcliff wrote in post #8755597
@Clarrie, did you brighten the grooms and the ladies in post they seem to be lacking black depth?

Guilty... I dropped the black clipping to give a bit more definition. I think I went a bit too far

great shot damo. that hair does look good but must've cost a fortune and a fair few hours if it's a proper extension where they join them.

The Moose wrote in post #8755611
Should do! I forgot to print out the email just incase but if they were so clear about it then I should be fine.

yeah, but you dont want your day ruined by a zealous boofhead idiot wearing "security"who confiscates your camera despite what you tell him, as he beats you saying in a Cartman voice " you have to respect my authoritory" (sic)

tangcla wrote in post #8755614
Guilty... I dropped the black clipping to give a bit more definition. I think I went a bit too far

ed. wrote in post #8755615
great shot damo. that hair does look good but must've cost a fortune and a fair few hours if it's a proper extension where they join them.

Mate, its all secret womans business...:p

Well, For what it's worth, here's my thoughts on my new "On location power supply".

It works as advertised.

HTH,

Austen.
:
:


OK, Full details......

For the battery, I was using an old electric fork-lift battery that I came across in a previous life, 12v 35Ah SLA battery, an eBay special 300w Pure Sine Wave Inverter and an eBay special 250Ws studio strobe.

So we arrived at the location and unpacked the car. The battery was heavy, but when we packed up I carried the battery back to the car in one of those 99c shopping bags (reasonably heavy duty) and that was easy enough to do.

The inverter came with two sets of cables, a cigarette plug set and an alligator clip set, obviously I used the alligator clip set.

These supplied cables seemed "low quality" to me, not too thick and "cheap looking" insulation. Likewise the alligator clips are what you would typically expect, reasonably "low quality" with cheap plastic insulation.

The inverter has screw-on terminals on the rear, the cables have slide-on connectors to suit, so connecting the cables to the inverter was a no-brainer.

After making sure the inverter was OFF, I used the alligator clips to connect it to the battery.

I set the strobe on a stand and plugged the mains lead into it, I then plugged the mains lead into the inverter and switched the inverter ON and then the strobe ON.

I then fired away to my hearts content, guessing some 30-odd photos in 10 minutes or so.

The inverter (which was in the sun) was no warmer then you would of expected a metal box sitting in the sun to get, the power cables and clips were at ambient temperature, likewise the battery.

We then moved to a different location and repeated the exercise with the same results.

So, it appears that my issues with the power cables and clips are purely cosmetic. Sure they look "cheap and nasty" but after a days use I can honestly say that they appear to be more then adequate to handle the job asked of them !!

So, if you live in a location where "name brand" on-location power supplies are just too expensive then it really is worth looking into this option !!

Maybe later today I'm going to do a power comparison test between my 580EX-II and the 250 W/s strobe, and if I'm feeling energetic I might even connect one of my 600 W/s studio strobes to the inverter and see what happens !!

Austen.

Cheers for the update Austen,
so glad it works as advertised LMAO.


but I think 3 flashes every minute is not really testing the syetem IMHO "guessing some 30-odd photos in 10 minutes or so." can you try shooting at the max rate allowable on your 250watt strobe and test recycle times, flash power output heat generation and system wear and tear?

and can you pm me a password to your models file on your site if that would be possible so i can see you studio results?

Thanks for the review Austen. What damo said about pushing the setup to find the limit (if any)

Austen,

Thanks for the update. I look forward to hearing about how the power compares to the speedlite.

Cheers,
Al

OK.....FULL results are in, and they're (in some ways) a bit disappointing !!!

I set the flashes on the edge of the breakfast bar, and put an apple on the kitchen table 1.5m away as a marker for where I was to be putting the lightmeter.

I set the lightmeter on ISO 100 / T = 1/125.

All lights were triggered with the CTR-301P's

First up was the 580EX-II @ 1/1 power, that registered @ f/ 16.4

Next up was the 250 W/s eBay special, that registered a constant @ f/ 11.4

I'm not sure what was the more surprising bit, that the 250 W/s was not as powerful as the 580 EX-II...Or that the 580EX-II was more powerful then the strobe !!

OK, So we now know that for heavy-duty use, it's the Speedlight and not the strobe !!

Next I connected up the full-size 600 W/s studio strobe, with the modelling light "OFF" !!

"Not happy Jan."

The inverter fan runs whenever it is loaded up, the 600 W/s strobe took a full 30 seconds of beeping and squawking (yes, it DID squawk and beep !!) to charge up, while the inverter fan did not run at all.

I **SUSPECT** that the strobe was drawing more than 600W (Inverter peak surge rating) which IMMEDIATELY caused the inverter to shut down (so no inverter current draw to start the fan) which caused I=Zero, which allowed the inverter to restart...repeat for 30 seconds until enough juice had "slipped by" to charge the strobe.

FWIW, The strobe eventually fired @ f/ 32

Next up was my "original" eBay strobe, a Delicacy 180 W/s unit.

This registered @ f/ 8.5

So, I thought to myself, let's try the 250 W/s AND the 180 W/s together.

These fired @ f/ 16.0

Using the patented one hippopotamus two hippopotamus timing method, the recycle rate was 2.3 seconds.

You'll recall that the single 250 W/s recycled @ around 2 seconds, so it definitely WAS noticeably longer, but not in any meaningful way at all.

What does all this mean, and where to from here ??

Well, first of, the Speedlight is more powerful then the 250 W/s strobe, but at $600 Vs $100 it had better be too !!

The same brand strobe is now available in 300 W/s so that may well be my next purchase, that would be around (plus or minus an acceptable tolerance) the same power as the 580EX-II .......

SO, for "On location lighting" I think the most cost-effective way (and hence my recommendation) would be two or three of the 300 W/s strobes, and I would recommend the 600W (1200 peak) inverter to drive them.

As it is, the 300W inverter had no trouble driving the 180 W/s and 300 W/s strobes, and it seems to be able to do so indefinitely.

With ANY sort of flash lighting there's no way that I am going to be able to use the 40D's 6.3 frames / sec burst mode, so for all intents and purposes these are as fast as I'll get using flashes, better then one frame every three seconds .......

Hope this helps,

Austen.