Strobe choices (attn Wilt and TMR ;-) )

Decisions, decisions…
I am going to upgrade from my off-camera hot-shoe flashes to strobes and have narrowed the field down to Elinchrom and Dyna-Lite… but now comes the hard part… which one? Both have pros and cons…

Oh, and before anyone thinks it - don't suggest Alien Bees or White Lightnings or 50 SB-800s linked together...

There is also the power pack+head versus moonlights dilemma… What I like about power packs: the heads are lighter, so when they are on a boom you don’t have to worry as much about the weight… plus if you want to adjust the power you can from the ground. What I don’t like about power packs (and please correct me if wrong) – not as much control over the power output. Take the Dyna-Lite SP2000 pack for example; there are four head jacks, but two controls, A and B. You can divide your 2000watts of power between A and B – but you can’t tune each of the four heads separately (like you could with moonlights)

For most things I do, a basic 400-500Ws head is fine. Indoors and a fair bit of outdoor situations don’t need more than 400-500Ws… BUT I would like to be able to have a few 1200-2000Ws heads for those times you need to snuff the sun out.

Flash duration… this is a tough one for me… TECHNICALLY, at this moment in time, flash duration is not important. But I do like shooting sports and have used my hot-shoe flashes and pocket wizards for basketball in the past. So having a system that would let add quick flash duration strobes, like the Dyna-Lite AH4000 (used to be 4080SP) or the Elinchrom A3000N.

So I am considering getting 2-3 monolights and then a power-pack with 1-2 heads for the situations where I need it on a boom… and then the heads+pack could also be used for the high Ws situations… so maybe a 2000Ws pack at 2x 2000Ws heads.

For monolights, I really like the Elinchrom BX400s – inexpensive and great… Elinchrom’s pack and head website confuses me a bit… though Dyna-Lite’s web designer needs to be fired – they have so much crappy Javascript their website doesn’t work in FF or IE (menus don’t popdown, etc)

Dyna-Lite’s monolight, the UNI400JRg is a good light too, but not as great in terms of cost…

In terms of accessories and compatibility – Elinchrom seems to win…

So it sounds like I like Elinchrom a lot… and I do – but I wish I could know more about their power pack and head systems and their sports strobes.


Any input from those that use or have used either Elinchrom or Dyna-Lite or both.... and their monolights and pack/head systems would be very much appreciated!

Hi Tim,

My day is a bit crazy so I'll chime in with some detail later this evening. In the meantime let me also suggest that you contact Rudi and Hermes regarding the Elinchrom Ranger. They can advise you about the Ranger S and AS as well as the A and S heads.

The Elinchrom 400BX are outstanding studio strobes and really deliver. I have 4 of them and love them. From what you're describing I'm inclined to agree with you in that having 2 systems makes the most sense. That's my plan once I decide to get a location kit. If you don't need the fast durations and tons of power in the studio then that really simplifies the choice for studio strobes.

Thanks Robert - I will contact them and find out more about the Ranger series.

Robert must have an attractive young blonde potential client looking thru his portfolio and trying to decide if she wants to hire him to do some boudoir shots for her SO! I'll help you with testing again, Robert!

timbernet wrote in post #7039347
What I don’t like about power packs (and please correct me if wrong) – not as much control over the power output. Take the Dyna-Lite SP2000 pack for example; there are four head jacks, but two controls, A and B. You can divide your 2000watts of power between A and B – but you can’t tune each of the four heads separately (like you could with moonlights)

Only partly true. Each channel of the Dynalite pack has its own fractional power settings (full, 1/2, 1/4) but the variator which offers smaller fractional EV adjustment is for the whole pack.

You could take a 1000 w-s Dynalite pack with two channels and have one side set at 500 w-s and the other side set at 125 w/s thru one head (or you could divide evenly thru two heads on Ch. B with 62 w-s thru each). So A is very different than B, but multiple heads on a single channel are similar to each other. This is the 'assymetric' mode behavior.

In the 'symmetric mode' behavior, the A and the B are added together, then the total is divided evenly among the heads that are plugged in. So if A was set to 500 w-s and B was set to 125 w-s, and you had two heads plugged in, then each would have 312 w-s; if three heads plugged in, each would have 208 w-s.

In practice, the 'less flexible power' is not an issue...you only need to move a single stand a couple of feet forward or back, for 1/2 EV adjustment!

timbernet wrote in post #7039347
For most things I do, a basic 400-500Ws head is fine. Indoors and a fair bit of outdoor situations don’t need more than 400-500Ws… BUT I would like to be able to have a few 1200-2000Ws heads for those times you need to snuff the sun out.

The heads themselves have full capacity for more power output thru one...2000 w-s thru the 2000 series heads, 4000 w-s thru the 4000 series bitube head. It is the pack that determines the output. (There is a 1000 series head, which is only sold for the 500 w-s pack and it cannot connect to a larger output pack.)

timbernet wrote in post #7039347
Flash duration… this is a tough one for me… TECHNICALLY, at this moment in time, flash duration is not important. But I do like shooting sports and have used my hot-shoe flashes and pocket wizards for basketball in the past. So having a system that would let add quick flash duration strobes, like the Dyna-Lite AH4000 (used to be 4080SP) or the Elinchrom A3000N.

So I am considering getting 2-3 monolights and then a power-pack with 1-2 heads for the situations where I need it on a boom… and then the heads+pack could also be used for the high Ws situations… so maybe a 2000Ws pack at 2x 2000Ws heads.

For monolights, I really like the Elinchrom BX400s – inexpensive and great… Elinchrom’s pack and head website confuses me a bit… though Dyna-Lite’s web designer needs to be fired – they have so much crappy Javascript their website doesn’t work in FF or IE (menus don’t popdown, etc)

Dyna-Lite’s monolight, the UNI400JRg is a good light too, but not as great in terms of cost…

In terms of accessories and compatibility – Elinchrom seems to win…

So it sounds like I like Elinchrom a lot… and I do – but I wish I could know more about their power pack and head systems and their sports strobes.

Any input from those that use or have used either Elinchrom or Dyna-Lite or both.... and their monolights and pack/head systems would be very much appreciated!

I think monolights are perfect when you have a very large area to cover. Team sports shooting in a gym is an example; architectural photography (interiors or night exterior) is another. For studio shooting I prefer packs and heads, for exactly the reasons you elaborated. I don't try to use a flat blade screwdriver to drive Phillips head screws, I buy the tool for the job.

Wilt wrote in post #7040123
I think monolights are perfect when you have a very large area to cover. Team sports shooting in a gym is an example; architectural photography (interiors or night exterior) is another. For studio shooting I prefer packs and heads, for exactly the reasons you elaborated. I don't try to use a flat blade screwdriver to drive Phillips head screws, I buy the tool for the job.

Thank you for your help --- after digging into the Elinchrom pack systems a bit more I think this is what I want to do:

2-3x Elinchrom Style 400BX Monolights
2x Dyna-Lite SH2000 (or MH2050) 2000Ws heads
1x Dyna-Lite SP2000 2000Ws pack

Yes I end up mixing systems -- two separate brands... but I like the Dyna-Lite packs and the Elinchrom monos...

Is there a specific reason not to consider getting two 1000 w-s packs? Would there be a need for all 2000 w-s thru one head?

Just asking, to see if you had considered that. I have one 2000 w-s pack myself (in addtion to other lower powered packs), but I need that power for product photography and small aperture DOF, and even then I have had to resort to multi-pop exposures.

Wilt wrote in post #7040558
Is there a specific reason not to consider getting two 1000 w-s packs? Would there be a need for all 2000 w-s thru one head?

Just asking, to see if you had considered that. I have one 2000 w-s pack myself (in addtion to other lower powered packs), but I need that power for product photography and small aperture DOF.

Only reason for getting a 2000Ws pack now would be that in the future when I buy their dual-tube sports strobes I would already have a pack.

That said -- getting two 1000Ws packs now and then later on I could get a larger if needed. Hmm....

I wish the local shop carried this stuff so I could rent and play around with them... they only rent Profoto and Speedotron...

Hi Tim, Robert turned me onto this thread.

I'd definitely recommend sticking with the same brand for the monolights and the pack - having two sets of modifiers, two repair centres, two local dealers, e.t.c. will cost you a lot of time and money. You'll most likely end up spending as much on modifiers as you do on the strobes themselves. Not sure if it applies in this case but it's also worth noting that different manufacturers build their lights to different colour-temperature specs so you could end up having to deal with mixed lighting. What is it about the Dyna-Lite pack that you can't find in the Elinchrom range?

I have to disagree with Wilt about the inflexible power settings of packs not being an issue - moving strobes backwards and forwards to increase/decrease the light hitting your subject is not being in control, and in my mind is definitely not an acceptable compromise in a studio. You should have the capability to decide on the light spread, position and relative size of the modifier and then set the power level you want, rather than being forced to position your lights based on the output you need and accept whatever size & spread you happen to get.

Personally, I use Elinchrom RXs for studio work (each one can be adjusted through a six stop range) and I only break out a pack when I need more than 1200ws of power (very rare). The boom issue is solved with these lights as you can set the output by remote or by software. It's true that they are heavier than pack heads but they're still only a couple of kilos - any half-decent boom will be able to support them, and as far as I'm concerned any boom that can't support such a small amount of weight is a safety hazard regardless of how heavy your lights are.

Hope that's given you another perspective. Like I said, I don't use packs all that often as they don't give the degree of control I need for studio work, but I do have some experience with the Elinchrom range so if you need any info I'll do what I can.

Hermes wrote in post #7041190
Hi Tim, Robert turned me onto this thread.

I'd definitely recommend sticking with the same brand for the monolights and the pack - having two sets of modifiers, two repair centres, two local dealers, e.t.c. will cost you a lot of time and money. You'll most likely end up spending as much on modifiers as you do on the strobes themselves. Not sure if it applies in this case but it's also worth noting that different manufacturers build their lights to different colour-temperature specs so you could end up having to deal with mixed lighting. What is it about the Dyna-Lite pack that you can't find in the Elinchrom range?

I have to disagree with Wilt about the inflexible power settings of packs not being an issue - moving strobes backwards and forwards to increase/decrease the light hitting your subject is not being in control, and in my mind is definitely not an acceptable compromise in a studio. You should have the capability to decide on the light spread, position and relative size of the modifier and then set the power level you want, rather than being forced to position your lights based on the output you need and accept whatever size & spread you happen to get.

Personally, I use Elinchrom RXs for studio work (each one can be adjusted through a six stop range) and I only break out a pack when I need more than 1200ws of power (very rare). The boom issue is solved with these lights as you can set the output by remote or by software. It's true that they are heavier than pack heads but they're still only a couple of kilos - any half-decent boom will be able to support them, and as far as I'm concerned any boom that can't support such a small amount of weight is a safety hazard regardless of how heavy your lights are.

Hope that's given you another perspective. Like I said, I don't use packs all that often as they don't give the degree of control I need for studio work, but I do have some experience with the Elinchrom range so if you need any info I'll do what I can.

Color temperature was something I was worried about... hmmm... time to decide on a brand....

It was basically a price-to-performance issue... the Elinchrom packs cost more than the Dyna-Lites, support fewer heads, etc.

Weight hasn't been the biggest concern for me in regards to monolights on a boom - it was mainly the ability to change settings from the ground... but that remote looks very interesting...

So many options! It would be easier if one could say "this brand is horrible or this way is horrible" - but Dyna-Lite is a very good brand, and Elinchrom is very good as well.

I can comment a little bit about the Elincrom. I recently purchased a Elincrom Ranger RX AS kit and can say that they are very well made products. They perform flawlessly. Also I love Elincrom's modifiers. They have some amazing boxes. At the studio we have their giant 74in Octa box and can say that it is an amazing as is their Deep Throat box.

Hermes wrote in post #7041190
Hi Tim, Robert turned me onto this thread.

I'd definitely recommend sticking with the same brand for the monolights and the pack - having two sets of modifiers, two repair centres, two local dealers, e.t.c. will cost you a lot of time and money. You'll most likely end up spending as much on modifiers as you do on the strobes themselves. Not sure if it applies in this case but it's also worth noting that different manufacturers build their lights to different colour-temperature specs so you could end up having to deal with mixed lighting. What is it about the Dyna-Lite pack that you can't find in the Elinchrom range?

I have to disagree with Wilt about the inflexible power settings of packs not being an issue - moving strobes backwards and forwards to increase/decrease the light hitting your subject is not being in control, and in my mind is definitely not an acceptable compromise in a studio. You should have the capability to decide on the light spread, position and relative size of the modifier and then set the power level you want, rather than being forced to position your lights based on the output you need and accept whatever size & spread you happen to get.

Personally, I use Elinchrom RXs for studio work (each one can be adjusted through a six stop range) and I only break out a pack when I need more than 1200ws of power (very rare). The boom issue is solved with these lights as you can set the output by remote or by software. It's true that they are heavier than pack heads but they're still only a couple of kilos - any half-decent boom will be able to support them, and as far as I'm concerned any boom that can't support such a small amount of weight is a safety hazard regardless of how heavy your lights are.

Hope that's given you another perspective. Like I said, I don't use packs all that often as they don't give the degree of control I need for studio work, but I do have some experience with the Elinchrom range so if you need any info I'll do what I can.

Hermes,
your disagreement on the point of moving the light wasn't unexpected! I have, in the past, thought about the move-back-and-forth approach to power adjustment vs. the light source size issue. If we assume the softbox is 48" across, it is effectively 40 degrees across its surface if we place it at 5.6' from the subject. If we move it back to 6.9' away, we have effected a 2/3 EV reduction in light intensity, and a change to a 32.5 degree angular width of the light source. I am deliberately exaggerting the magnitude of change in light intensity that I want to accomplish, simply to point out the relatively small effect it has on apparent light source size! 40 to 32.5 degrees, to get 2/3 EV of light reduction. In practice, the intensity change is more likely 1/3 to 1/2 EV difference, not 2/3 EV difference. So, has the apparent light source size changed that much? I think not. Not to the magnitude that there is a signficantly visible effect on the shadow penumbra and the harshness of shadow edge! And certainly not to the extent, in the shooting I have done, where I thought "This is an unacceptable change in shadow edge quality" and I was wishing for a separate pack to power that head.

Wilt wrote in post #7042204
Hermes,
your disagreement on the point of moving the light wasn't unexpected! I have, in the past, thought about the move-back-and-forth approach to power adjustment vs. the light source size issue. If we assume the softbox is 48" across, it is effectively 40 degrees across its surface if we place it at 5.6' from the subject. If we move it back to 6.9' away, we have effected a 2/3 EV reduction in light intensity, and a change to a 32.5 degree angular width of the light source. I am deliberately exaggerting the magnitude of change in light intensity that I want to accomplish, simply to point out the relatively small effect it has on apparent light source size! 40 to 32.5 degrees, to get 2/3 EV of light reduction. In practice, the intensity change is more likely 1/3 to 1/2 EV difference, not 2/3 EV difference. So, has the apparent light source size changed that much? I think not. Not to the magnitude that there is a signficantly visible effect on the shadow penumbra and the harshness of shadow edge! And certainly not to the extent, in the shooting I have done, where I thought "This is an unacceptable change in shadow edge quality" and I was wishing for a separate pack to power that head.

In that particular scenario, I can see how you'd live with a small compromise (still not sure I could though), but you're talking about a very specific style of lighting that uses massive softboxes and mild ratios. That just isn't the the style my clients are asking for and I can say the same for most of the photographers I work with.

When you're using moderately sized dishes and reflectors, when you need to create several stops worth of difference between two heads rather than just 2/3 of a stop, or when you're using precision tools like grids, snoots, flags, e.t.c. (all the time for me), moving a light backwards or forwards to adjust power just isn't an option as it completely ruins the look you've worked to achieve. I regularly have shoots where I need a 1200RX on full power and an RX 300 on minimum power (e.g. for a focussing spot and a polished parabolic reflector respectively) - I'd have to go out into the street if I wanted to get that ratio with a pack by moving the lights. There are also plenty of times when you need to use lights at high and low angles and moving the lights further back would mean going through the floor or the ceiling. Then of course there's all the spill you get by using modifiers at greater distances than necessary which completely kills the balance of a carefully lit scene - there are only so many grids you can get and flags you can use before you run out of control options.

Unless you go for digital Bron or Profoto packs that have a decent range of adjustment (or a seperate pack for each head you want to run) pack/head systems just cripple you for any style of lighting where precision counts.

The 2/3 stop was merely the delta exposure needed, the tweak!...I might have already positioned and set the power of the lights to be 2:1 or 3:1 or 5:1 more in intensity, at their starting position, and what I was trying to illustrate was to get 2.5:1 or 3.5:1 instead, the incremental change from the starting point. The starting point already set the contrastiness of the setup, I was merely tweaking the same way in which you might adjust the variator 0.3 or 0.5EV on a single monolight. You would have first used fractional power switch setting, then used the variator setting to tweak a single light by a fractional EV...what I did was the same, except using distance for the fractional EV tweak!

I also never made the statement that I rely on a single pack for shoots! I merely was talking about how one might adjust only one, if that was all you owned.

Okay - revision time!

What I would like:
1 or 2 strobes that are powerful enough to provide enough flexibility to overpower the sun... so 1000-2000Ws most likely. Depending on conditions, less might work - but let's have the flexibility.

Elinchrom-
Mono: Style RX 1200
Pack: Ranger?

Dyna-Lite-
Pack: Either a few 1000Ws packs or one 2000Ws pack... 2000Ws heads for the most power and maybe some 1000Ws heads for flexibility (additional 1000Ws heads for the points below)


1 strobe that can be remotely controlled (either via a pack or a remote control) for use on a boom - primarily for a hairlight or an elevated softbox (think clamshell lighting)

Elinchrom-
Via Remote Control: Style RX 300 or Style RX 600 Mono
Via Pack: Ranger?

Dyna-Lite-
Via Remote Control: NOTHING
Via Pack: Same as above


2-3 strobes for traditional lighting setups on stands... background light, key, fill, etc... no need for a lot of power.

Elinchrom-
Style BX400

Dyna-Lite-
Mono: Uni400JrG
Via Pack: Same as above

Ability to one day add some sport strobes without too much additional cost.
Dyna-Lite wins here... the Elinchrom's cost A LOT for their sport strobes/packs.


Elinchrom wins in add-on accessories and their attachment system, etc (from what I have read).


Both companies have good support, though, you typically don't have to send your gear in every other month like a certain other company we all know... *cough* AB/WL *cough*


Budget... including lightstands, softboxes, some grids and snoots, etc... looking at $5-6k for the complete setup...

I would like to know more about the Ranger setup... having a larger battery pack is a nice idea... no need to haul a generator around for those places without power... of course, the larger battery backs come at a cost and a few limitations...

Wilt wrote in post #7042674
The 2/3 stop was merely the delta exposure needed, the tweak!...I might have already positioned and set the power of the lights to be 2:1 or 3:1 or 5:1 more in intensity, at their starting position, and what I was trying to illustrate was to get 2.5:1 or 3.5:1 instead, the incremental change from the starting point. The starting point already set the contrastiness of the setup, I was merely tweaking the same way in which you might adjust the variator 0.3 or 0.5EV on a single monolight. You would have first used fractional power switch setting, then used the variator setting to tweak a single light by a fractional EV...what I did was the same, except using distance for the fractional EV tweak!

Speaking from the point of view of using Elinchrom Ranger packs, in this scenario you assume that you have a separate power pack for each head! Because if you don't, with the Ranger packs you are locked into a particular ratio when you connect more than one head (1:1 with the Ranger RX and Ranger RX Speed, and 2:1 with the Ranger RX Speed AS). But then... if you have a separate pack for each head, why not adjust the power in 1/10 stop increments, since the Ranger already accommodates this?

(I know other brands might have different features, the above applies to Elinchrom Ranger packs).