Issues with booming the EL Octa

I have the A5036CS stand and the D650 boom arm. I'm trying to get my 72-inch EL Octa attached to it in a way that allows me to actually boom the Octa horizontally past the center of gravity of the stand without the Octa pivoting/rotating on the baby stud to the "pointing down" position. Anybody know the secret?

Photo 1 shows the run of the mill vertical installation

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Look at the grip hardware thread. There is plenty info in that. Something like a drop down pin would help. They have nicer ones with double ball joints also.

http://www.avenger-grip.com …t_detail?produc​tCode=F830

so here's the Avenger ball head gizmo I tried. It will not work with the Elinchrom 600 RX, or the EL Octa, or the EL Strip because the recess in the baby end is too far and will be crooked:

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I've confirmed it: the Avenger F830 does NOT work with Elinchrom.

I'll get my Octabank out tomorrow and try it with a few different mounts.

I don't understand what you mean by it will be crooked. Are you saying that the set screw from the Eli will be half on the larger diameter and the smaller diameter sections of the pin ?

Scroll down this page and have a look. They make a bunch of adapters for different style mounts.

http://www.avenger-grip.com …=77&from=0&tota​lNumber=77

I am having a little bit of trouble following the pictures and the text description of the problem. Are you saying that the problem is that you can not tighten the wing nut on the El Octa secure enough to LOCK the position of the modifier? Or is the problem the wingnut that tightens down on the baby pin?

I don't have the El Octa, but I do use my RX 600 with a boom. I use the Avenger E700 Baby Drop Down Pin.

Regards,

110yd

Where is Dave when you need him.

110yd look at the last picture. The strobe is mounted little crooked. I don't shoot elinchrom but I have heard,seen this thing depending on which mfg grid hardware (avenger vs Mathews)e being used. Something to do with the pin length and design. Robert and Dave had shown some samples if I remember.

Ok, the last photo shows the F830 inserted all the way into the 600RX mounting bracket. But in order to be straight after tightening the wing nut, it would need to inserted deeper. It seems to me that the recess (the smaller diameter) length has been machined at too long of length.
This situation exists for both the F830 and the E200 Baby/junior adapter.
Heres a photo of the E200. Very disappointing situation here. I just am shocked that these two items aren't compatible with Elinchrom.

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it is length of that pin. Check Mathews gear,I think it was covered in the grip thread. Look into it.

Thanks Bobby. I've been away for a while and missed this discussion It sure would have saved a lot of hassle and expense.
Chris

I am posting two photos of the E700 Baby Drop Down Pin. The first photo is of the drop down pin alone. The second photo is of the drop down pin inserted in the RX600....

Regards,

110yd

Chris&jess wrote in post #14715221
Very disappointing situation here. I just am shocked that these two items aren't compatible with Elinchrom.

Why ?

All of this gear was designed decades ago. Elinchrom hasn't updated their horrible mount since they invented it. That's one of the their product claims, "The EL Standard Bayonet with breach locking-ring fits all EL Reflectors and Softlites since 1974." Their stand mounts just get worse, not better, look at the flimsy plastic of the Quadra heads.

Avenger gear is just cheap Italian knock offs of Matthews gear. All of which was designed decades ago for the movie industry where lights were/are tightened down with wrenches longer than your arm. I know, I work in Hollywood.

Any compatibility is a coincidence and the thought that the Swiss designers at Elinchrom would look outside their myopic perspective is ridiculous.

Hey all.

Chris, USE the D700 drop down pin. This is how I boom my Octa and it works perfectly well. I would also suggest changing the Elinchrom mount on the Octa for the Avenger D200 Grip head if you want real stability.

The D700 has a flat pin head which will mount properly on a studio light. The E200 stand adapter you have has a pointed head and so won't locate securely onto a studio light. 10 seconds on a grinder will reduce it down to a flat head so it will function properly with Elinchroms. Or, as suggested, you can use Matthews stand adapters which have a flat head as standard.

There's no reason to assume that any Cine grip will inherently work with studio flash. It's not what it was designed for. There are plenty of other studio lights that won't sit on the pointed pins either as they're designed with shorter 5/8" studs in mind.

I've worked with a lot of Avenger and Matthews gear in my field and on the whole prefer Avengers product range. Nothing cheap about it (price or build-quality wise).

Thanks all.
I have the E700 in my cart. B & H is shut till 9:45 pm eastern so I'll wait till then to order it.

Thank you very much Lloyd for the photo, and thank you Hermes for the confirmation that this is the best solution. It'll be a little weird that my gear will be used while hanging upside-down, but what the hey. If this is what it takes to boom properly, then I'm over caring about upside-down.

Hermes, could you by chance post a photo of the D200 grip head on the Octa? I would like to see this set-up and will probably want to make the mod. As it is, I've stripped the wing-nut threads on my Octa mount and maybe your work-around would eliminate the necessity of swapping it out???

K.C., I've never used Matthews gear, but I have to say that this is the first disappointment I've experienced with Avenger during my six years of using it. It kind of sounds like I need to take some of the blame for the incompatibility though. I'm up here in far northern California and there's no one within a hundred and fifty miles of me who has this stuff, and who I could plagiarize from. So, this is the first I've heard of the "flat pin head" vs "Pointy pin head". But, I do appreciate your opinion. I find it very interesting.

Thanks all once again.

FS: Elinchrom F830, Elinchrom E200

Chris