AlienBees B800 powerful enough for outdoor?

Anybody use the B800 for outdoor portraiture? can I use it to overpower the sun or do I need to get the B1600 instead?

I tried a single B800 with 48" Softlighter II outside right before sunset, strobe was at full power and 2ft away from target, iso 100, 1/250s @f/16....


it wasn't too bright when I took this shot, metering the sky alone with 40D yield an exposure of about 1/1000s f/5.6 iso 100 so is it safe to say I would need a much more powerful strobe if I were to take the same shot in mid day?

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I don't see anything - no photos for show.

I tried mine today and they were nowhere near bright enough to overpower the sun. I'll be selling mine and getting some 1600's or some better lights

It will depend on how you modify them. They won't go close through a softbox. Direct you might do ok.

with the shot you provided, it looks like you were just using it for fill, not as a main light source. open up your aperture more if you need more flash exposure.

i think you will be ok using it as a fill in a sunlit scene. If you want to overpower the sun, I don't know if you can do that with the Ab800.

Zansho wrote in post #5303367
I don't see anything - no photos for show.

try this direct link: http://www.pbase.com/y​auyi/image/95429846

Exit wrote in post #5303523
I tried mine today and they were nowhere near bright enough to overpower the sun. I'll be selling mine and getting some 1600's or some better lights

man that's a bummer, I was thinking about using the B400 for background, and the B800 that I'd just received this morning as key light, I guess this combo is only good for indoor. I fear even the B1600 in a softbox or umbrella might not be strong enough to overpower the sun....

I have a question though - why would you want to overpower the sun? You can always use the sun as your hair light, main light, and your flash as fill. It's just out of curiosity's sake, but I have a hard time imagining a 1600 WS head overpowering the sun's light.

I shot a 2pm wedding last summer, outdoors. Used a single AB 800 direct. Adjusted the output until the harsh shadows were reduced. Plenty of power, no problem. Captured all of the formals just fine.

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Zansho wrote in post #5303975
I have a question though - why would you want to overpower the sun? You can always use the sun as your hair light, main light, and your flash as fill. It's just out of curiosity's sake, but I have a hard time imagining a 1600 WS head overpowering the sun's light.

I wanna take photo like these:

ben805 wrote in post #5304284
I wanna take photo like these:

The above photos belongs to shatterkiss from FM.

and these (belongs to shelbyc from FM):

You're going to want to take those photos down and post links to them, unless you have permission from the people that took the photos to post them here. You also might want to have a read of the Image Posting Rules.

you will be using basically the same camera settings to beat the sun. you can usually work down to f/11 also. so yes, with your setup for the sunset image it will work. it gets sketchy when your light gets farther away. you will find that it is not too far away that you lose a whole lot of flash power. lose the softbox and shoot with the reflector, and you can easily make pictures like the ones you posted.

Exit wrote in post #5303523
I tried mine today and they were nowhere near bright enough to overpower the sun. I'll be selling mine and getting some 1600's or some better lights

Before you rush out to do that, stop and think if you will be using them indoors for portraiture and wanting to use larger apertures for limited DOF...there is another thread on POTN about the shot to shot variability of AB when used at the lowest power settings, and they also drift to a magenta tint in color balance at the lowest power settings.

Overpowering the sun has some variables that must be considered...light distance to subject is the key one!

If we assume ISO 100 and a sunny day, Sunny 16 says 1/100 f/16. Assuming we can up the shutter speed to 1/200 (this is not always true of studio strobe use!) we set f/11 on the aperture. Buff's web site says AB800 can output to f/16 +0.2 at a shooting distance of 10' with ISO 100...about GN180 with the standard reflector. To equal the power of the sun, you can shoot out to 16' (GN180 / 11 = 16.4 ) It can be brighter than that sun only to about 14' (180 / 13), it can provide fill at -1EV to about 22'.

Wilt wrote in post #5304557
Before you rush out to do that, stop and think if you will be using them indoors for portraiture and wanting to use larger apertures for limited DOF...there is another thread on POTN about the shot to shot variability of AB when used at the lowest power settings, and they also drift to a magenta tint in color balance at the lowest power settings.

That's one of the reason why I bought the B400 first and see if it's powerful enough to use indoor studio, it was on 3/4 and sometime full power with the softlighter, then bought the B800 and thought I can use the extra headroom and also for some outdoor work and use the B400 as background. I know for certain that the B1600 will be too much for my indoor use, hmm....i'll have to try the B800 with only the reflector and see how it does in sunny day again, might have to do a butterfly with the B400...