Mega-Flash Curiosity.

I was rather intrigued to find this photograph (the one at the top) the other night, when I was reading up on flash-related subjects:

http://markhancock.blo​gspot.com/2005/03/beho​ld-beast.html

That looks like a colossal burst of light to me. I imagine you could burn someone's head off with one of those things.

It prompted me to compare that set-up with my 580EX II. His quoted guide number is just over three times that of my flash, but he can light a whole football field using it on 4/5th of maximum power.

I would have thought that I would need hundreds of times the output of my flash to light a whole field, but he does it with 1600 watt-seconds of light. How is that possible? You surely couldn't do the same with a few light bulbs totalling 1600 watts.

Is light from a flash tube considerably more efficient? Is it something to do with more light and less heat due to the duration of the light output when compared with a conventional bulb?

Mike

It's a novelty for football but not for other outdoor sports.

Norman portable flashes, some more powerful than monolights, have been used by working pros for years. They've been standard equipment for racing photographers who have learned that standard shoe-mount flashes aren't powerful enough to cut through dusty air at dimly-lit tracks that run at night. Sometimes, racing photographers use Norman strobes in broad daylight when they're taking pictures on a clear day and race cars are heavily top lit.

The guys who use Normans at tracks wire them into hot shoe sync cables and then attach a Wein Safe-Sync voltage regulator to protect their cameras.

Of course, photographers have been using large strobe systems to illuminate indoor arenas for years. The only big change there has been the switch from sync cables to Pocket Wizards to trigger the strobes.

Interesting, that's a big beast.

Interesting links, thanks.

I was looking at the price of used Norman P2000D and associated bits and pieces, and they aren't too expensive. Something like that would be great for some of my night photography ideas.

I can't really relate the facts and figures to how I might set one of those things up, but I get the impression that they will nuke anything and the control is achieved with the camera settings rather than the light output.

Mike

Nothing at all that unusual about this equipment...there are many different power packs which supply 2000-2400 w-s of lighting power to 1 or more flash heads.

Definitely something that I could make good use of.

I'm still wondering about my technical question though - out of curiosity.

Mike

Speedotron has been selling a Blackline 4800 Ws power pack for decades. They are reasonably common used, for attractive prices.

Enjoy! Lon

Mike-DT6 wrote in post #6437884
I would have thought that I would need hundreds of times the output of my flash to light a whole field, but he does it with 1600 watt-seconds of light. How is that possible? You surely couldn't do the same with a few light bulbs totalling 1600 watts.
Mike

Watts in the "implied" light output of incandescent bulbs, has nothing to do with the Watt-Second rating of a electronic flash power pack.

You are equating two distinct concepts that just happen to both have the word "Watt" as part of their name.

Enjoy! Lon

That would explain it then!

Mike

Everything is relative. I regularly use an old Novatron 1600Ws pack with two heads to shoot drag racing at night. I probably use the lights closer than the blog author, but the light is not contained. It puts out just the right amount of light for me, but it would be a bit much for portraits in a studio.

The Norman is just a standard power pack and head combination. Speedotron, Dynalite, Profoto, Elinchrom, the new Alienbees "Zeus" line, and several others are all in the same realm of functionality at varying price points.

It's hard to compare a hot-shoe flash to a studio strobe - their outputs can't be linearly compared. The 580EX, like every other "pocket flash", is fronted by a plastic fresnel lens that collimates the light for maximum forward efficiency. All large studio strobes, by comparison, just have a large, bare flash tube which throws light in every direction. You then attach modifiers (reflectors, softboxes, beautydishes, etc) to mold or direct the light as you wish.

A 580EXII, in terms of rough output, would equate to roughly 100 or so Wattseconds, in comparison to the 2000WS which Mark Hancock's pack is capable of. As a final FYI, the "Beast" is not anywhere near as large as indicated by the picture. You're seeing the corona of the flash. The power pack is about the size of a shoe box, and the actual flash head is about the size of a softball. I suspect that it's mounted inside the press box, and therefore the light is bouncing off all the interior walls and what we're actually seeing is simply a very, very bright press box.

Thanks Jim and Jonathan.

Do the flash tubes in the heads last for the expected life of the equipment, or are they consumables that you would need to change at certain intervals?

Mike

Mike-DT6 wrote in post #6448708
Thanks Jim and Jonathan.

Do the flash tubes in the heads last for the expected life of the equipment, or are they consumables that you would need to change at certain intervals?

Mike

flash tubes last a long time...depending upon brand and power output, they might last 10000-10,000,000 flashes!