Broncolor manufacturing

Interesting rebuttal by Broncolor to Elvs claims they are made in/by Chinese on FlashHavoc. I think Elv got spanked.
There is also a great feature on Bron's site showing their manufacturing facilities.

Reposting Bron's rebuttal:


WIll Prentice
2 hours ago
Hi,

I see that you have been posting incorrect information about broncolor and their relationship with Godox, as is evidenced above – both here and on other forums.

As an authorized broncolor distributor, I would like to correct your misinformation, as much as I can.

RFS2.2 and X1 appear very similar, but are in fact very different internally. The biggest difference is that they are NOT cross compatible – RFS2.2 will not trigger X1 and vice versa. This is in part due to the 99 channels/studio addresses. RFS2.2 is backwards compatible with RFS2.1 and RFS2. Godox transmitters are not compatible in any way with RFS from broncolor. This is Swiss technology and will remain that way. As a side note, RFS2.1 was available as receiver (for use with older bron packs) or transceiver. They did not get that from Godox.

broncolor wanted to enable HS on their strobes but not in the haphazard way that other companies did with triggers that weren’t reliable and wanted to support Canon, Nikon and Sony camera systems from the start without timely delays. Godox triggering was deemed to be reliable enough for broncolor’s purposes and broncolor licensed Godox for some components and technology for RFS2.2 to enable HS timing. Ultimately, broncolor was able to release solid triggers that worked.

broncolor has always used IGBT circuitry in Move, Siros and Scoro, along with other proprietary technology, to manipulate the flash curve to offer the most reliable colour, power and temperature output, among other things. HS is indeed an optimized flash curve (not pulsed), that can be further manipulated from the trigger using manual adjustments.

John – to your point about the studio channels/ID – broncolor has used that terminology since the original RFS. It isn’t automatically set – you set the studio address on your strobes, and then a lamp address (unique for each light or lamp output) and then set the RFS 2.2 (Press ST, scroll to the studio number of your lights and press ST to lock it in).

I’d also like to squash some other speculation that Elvis has posted on other sites, such as photography-on-the-net: all broncolor strobes, lamps and packs are made in Switzerland. While some components may come from China, many components are sourced from Europe and all design, manufacturing, assembly and testing is done at the company in Allschwil.

broncolor recently released a great blog post with pictures from inside the factory: http://news.broncolor.​swiss/about-products/__trashed-2/

I trust this clears things up and hope that, in the future, you do your homework before presenting false or misleading information. That helps nobody.

Kind regards,
Will Prentice
broncolor Canada

Get's kind of tiring when people make stupid claims about manufacturer they don't really know jack about..I'v had such stupid claim made on this very forum claiming they had "inside information"

Good on Will for putting an end to it.

you can add my reply


"Will, thanks for attacking me for no reason.

I’ve barely posted anything about Broncolor’s relationship with Godox, and if anything I’ve pointed out Godox do not make the Siros L as people often now suspecting with the release of the AD600 Pro.

Godox are fast coming for you’re market share, and attacking me is not going to help you whatsoever."


Maybe Broncolor can publish exactly which "components" and prominent Chinese manufacturers they deal with, and then customers can decide for themselves.

This is a pointless argument in any case, some of the facilities in China are now state of the art, just because its more economical does not necessarily mean lesser quality etc.

Attacking you? Which part of his reply are you referring to?

elv wrote in post #18555128
you can add my reply


"Will, thanks for attacking me for no reason.

I’ve barely posted anything about Broncolor’s relationship with Godox, and if anything I’ve pointed out Godox do not make the Siros L as people often now suspecting with the release of the AD600 Pro.

Godox are fast coming for you’re market share, and attacking me is not going to help you whatsoever."


Maybe Broncolor can publish exactly which "components" and prominent Chinese manufacturers they deal with, and then customers can decide for themselves.

This is a pointless argument in any case, some of the facilities in China are now state of the art, just because its more economical does not necessarily mean lesser quality etc.

I believe Will was clarifying what he feels are errors in your postings. That's not an attack. His response is due to the fact I inquired, at YOUR recommendation, as to where they were made. Do I need to link the thread/posts from POTN?

Oh, here it is:

Ok fair enough I see, the was a bit of a throw away line making the point that most gear (even brand name) is actually made in China (or India etc) now to some degree.

I haven't named any companies or given specifies, as mentioned if Broncolor want to elaborate on anything I'll leave that up to them.

It was a wrongful insinuation and an error on your part, you got corrected. There is absolutely nothing in his response that would even come close to a personal attack.

There is also still a lot made and assembled in Europe (in this case Switzerland). Unlike many others who just have a clueless opinion, some of us actually converse and meet with these manufacturers on a regular basis. So when blatant claims are spread I'm glad that it doesn't go unchecked.

Does this mean that Deejjjaaaa has to look at Broncolor to have the Sony trigger work correctly?

Hi Elvis,

As was pointed out by other users at POTN, this was not an attack but a rebuttal of your slanderous defamation of broncolor above and correcting misinformation on your own blog, from you and one of your users. Let's be very clear - in a discussion about broncolor triggers with reference to a broncolor rep, your direct reply "Nevermind the transmitter, you should ask the rep which Chinese manufacturer makes the strobe itself" is targeting broncolor. Forum members all made that connection, due to your language, which is how I was brought into this.

Such comments can be construed as damaging to the business and reputation of the brand - especially unfounded throw away remarks such as your comment about the provenance of broncolor strobes. If you had information to back up that statement, then please present it. Otherwise, I would suggest it's in your best interest to retract and/or delete said comment. I'm a lighting guy, not a lawyer, so this is only a suggestion.

Have a great weekend.
Kind regards,
Will

Elvis,

I'd like to add something. You run a fairly popular blog, which I and many other manufacturers follow. You're a good source of information about new products - keep that up. You're developing a nice resource for the photography community.

However, let me suggest that you be very careful when throwing around "opinions" that can't be substantiated by fact. Nothing on the Internet is private.

Keep doing what you do well.

Kind regards,
Will

Thanks, Mr Prentice for your clarifications and the link to the photos of Broncolor's factory. Although not a Bron user myself (I'm a Hensel guy), I've wondered myself as well about where Bron's units were/are made, and I failed to find such information previously. Sadly, nowadays sussing out provenance for equipment has become a common exercise in frustration, as product photos with a 'Made in xxx' label are notorious for their paucity. This is in general, not picking on Broncolor here. Even in 360° views that sites such as B&H, to name just one, provide such label isn't always present.

Once more, thanks for stepping up and enlightening us.

Thanks to you too, RandallB, for reposting info I would have otherwise missed.

The information page "about Broncolor products" was published four days ago and probably not available before.

bron just migrated their entire site to a ".swiss" TLD four days ago, which is why you see that date. The content hasn't changed since the previous bron.ch site.

One thing broncolor has been very open about is the provenance of their products - Swiss pride, especially in fine technology such as lighting and watches, cannot be matched

You're very welcome, @Alveric. Hensel is another very good product, which shares many traits with broncolor.

Something you might want to look into (and another reason provenance is important) is the tariff code for a given product. Tariff codes are usually tied to country of manufacture or assembly - different taxation is applied for different countries dependent upon trade agreements. I believe each country's government agency in charge of importing has publicly accessible records of this, but can't speak for all countries.