300 watt flash heads

[ajohnw]

Not a topic I have seen so far.

I'm wondering how effective power levels of 300w are with various things on it such as brollies etc. Guide numbers are one thing but they don't give any idea what the results will be with various bits and pieces on. Max distance in my case is circa 4m max. Base ISO probably never below 200 for m 4/3, unless I use one of my other cameras.

I'm also inclined to feel that distance helps obtain diffuse light eg single head "on the cheap" commercial work - say 6m plus and probably far more powerful heads.

John
-

[Black Pearl]

I've a mate who uses Elincrom Quadra's which are 400 Ws heads with various modifiers. He got them because of their portability and quality but says they are as low as he'd go. When we've tried to overcome a sunny day (he shoots Extreme Sports) and it has taken two or three of them at full whack but in the studio they are excellent (particularly with the Skyport and iOS App) so you should be fine with 300 Ws heads. What you're likely to be doing is running them closer to max power all the time so stresses and long life may be an issue but if they're cheap enough and/or repairable that might be a good compromise.

I would say to get softboxes instead of brollies as you're going to lose less light and they're far more directional.

[Manfred M]

John - that is probably as low as I would go for studio lights; mine are 640W units, and in general, when I work around the house, I am generally using the lower end of the power range. I tend to have my lights positioned fairly close to the subjects; after all I bought them to use as a soft light source.

An umbrella is a cheap way to start and has one other major advantage, especially when shooting people; it produced nice round (ish) catchlights. If you are going this way, I suggest you look at the "convertable" type; i.e.black removable cover, so you can shoot it as a traditional umbrella or use is as a shoot-through umbrella. Silver umbrellas are also available, but they create a harsher light. I find umbrellas are a bit hard to control they tend to spill light all over the place; so I have to flag my lights a fair bit. I almost always use other light modifiers; softboxes, reflectors and grids with my studio lights. My umbrellas are usually used when I shoot my Speedlights; i.e. portablity being the priority.

Starting with a single light makes a lot of sense. Get to know it before you introduce additional light sources. When shooting single light, I often use it in conjunction with a reflector. I have a lot of these that I got by cutting down an old piece of white foamcore board.

[ajohnw]

Thanks Robin. Given a flash meter or test shots they seem to be a better option than a powerful gun, especially on Olympus. I was playing around with my lights and "faces" and some aspects of flash appealed as an alternative to and with continuous. Bit frivolous really but as I have sold a lot of gear £ wise recently why not. Just 1 head though.

Replacement tubes are often a ridiculous price. Sad fact of life but it seems to be about £30 for the one I am looking at. 1/2 the price of the head. They also use 220v halogen modelling light in this price range I very much doubt if these last long. Bi Pin halogen seems to be favourite on the cheaper heads. I doubt if they are long life types. Makes me wonder if I could find some way of fitting a :LED. I don't think 75w is going to make a good modelling light anyway.

John
-

[ajohnw]

I have used studio flash heads Manfred but a long time ago. Not much interest at the time and often set up for me by the studio. I did much more with with continuous. I have my doubts about the claimed power of much of what is around now but suspect that is down to reflectors.

John
-

[ajohnw]

A friend of mine made a lot of use of snoots, usually 2 heads and little use of brollies but a lot of his work was product shooting and far less portrait. work as rather expensive. Bowens on over head gantries. To OTT for me.

I have brollies to play with anyway but wont be able to resist buying a snoot subject to some web research.

I'll add an edit to that. His product table was around 2m square and sometimes rather a lot of it covered. Looks like snoots might take a lot of research.

John
-

[xpatUSA]

Just to be pedantic, we should note that Watts are not the correct units for flash unit ratings. As Robin said correctly, the units are Ws which stands for Watt-second, a unit of energy equal to 1 Joule.

Unlike continuous lighting but similar to your electrical bill which comes to you in kW-h, not kW.

[ajohnw]

Joules would be even better Ted but I didn't want to confuse you

John
-

[Manfred M]

I have used studio flash heads Manfred but a long time ago. Not much interest at the time and often set up for me by the studio. I did much more with with continuous. I have my doubts about the claimed power of much of what is around now but suspect that is down to reflectors.

John
-

John - it's rather like MPixels of sensors and MHz on computers; that's what people look at when they buy them. I find output consistency (colour temperature) and adjustability (the amount that you can throttle down from full power) are probably just as important as pure raw output. These tend to be the problem with lower end monolights, especially the colour consistency.

If you are planning to do tabletop shooting, then lower output ones are going to be fine; if you are planning to overpower sunlight, then a lot more power will be required.

That being said, reflectors do add to the inefficiency of the system, for sure. Baffles, fabric based reflectors, etc. all ensure the light does not necessarily end up where you want it to. Umbrellas are amongst the least efficient light modifiers, because of the large amount of spill that they generate. Snoots are fun; I like combining mine with gells for accent lights, but I find I use grid spots a lot more, just because I tend to need a broader bean of light; gelled or plain.

[ajohnw]

On thing I am not clear on is when I see illumination angles specified - 1/2 angle or full? In other areas 1/2 angles are sometimes used. I'd guess to make them sound better. It can turn disappointing when reflectors are bought for LED's for instance.

I'll keep grid spots in mind. When brollies are used at a distance I believe the whole idea can be plenty of spill so there is also a bounce light effect.

I'm fairly pleased with my CFL lighting, my colorimeter gives it a delta e error of 4 at just under 5000K however the light output falls short of what I would expect at their power levels. I'd guess this is down to the size of them. The source on overdriven tungsten is much much smaller making it much easier to send light where it should be going.

John
-

[ashcroft]

I use these Interfit EX300 Ws units, which came as a kit. http://www.jessops.com/online.store/...7162/show.html

They are very well constructed and robust. The light is more than enough for my needs of close-up work. I've used them on a few commercial jobs - shooting rooms etc, and they were fine. It all depends what you are shooting, and how often. The closer that any lights are to your subject the softer the light will be. You will also need less power as you get closer due to the inverse square law. I'd say 300Ws is the minimum, but as I said, it depends what you are shooting.

[Loose Canon]

The reasons I use strobes as opposed to continuous lighting are many John but one of the main reasons is power.

It is also rare that I use a bare light w/reflector. Most often use for this would be lighting a background. If I want a white BG it takes a good bit of power to get it a couple of stops over the subject exposure. Even at that I often light through a diffusion background.

I don’t use brollies. I have a couple but they just don’t lend themselves to a lot of the type of studio work I like to do. I need much more control than they offer.

The softboxes I use are baffled. They have a double diffusion system. On top of that there may be a chance I’m going to be shooting through a diffusion panel as well with a softbox on further reducing the available output.

Grids, and other modifiers really eat light. Though I know this I’m still always surprised when I pop a 10* grid on a light. You really have to crank it up to get it back where you want it.

I like to have as much working distance available as possible whether I use the distance or not. Things get crowded around a set fast when you are using multiple lights with modifiers and diffusion panels.

Further, I need the ability to stop down. Sometimes way down. It is not unusual for me to shoot at f/22+ for DoF purposes.

So all of this means a good bit of power availability is necessary. I use 640Ws strobes and I have maxed them out from time to time. 300’s would just not be enough. I’d rather have it available and dial it down than not have it when I needed it.

[ajohnw]

I often go my own way if I feel it may work out Terry. I bought the CFL lamps and also the still life reflectors for 2 reasons, me if I want to use them and also for my son who is actually using one of them now - couple of hundred shots sometimes a couple of times a week. When I used them myself I wondered about a better way of obtaining a fill light. In some respects flash springs to mind so will try it.

I'm also shooting m 4/3 so have no real interest in F22. In my case that is likely to be F11. Also 200 ISO. As they specify power that alone may make my 300 getting on for 900 in your terms. Horses for courses. Try one 1st and see how it goes. I sometimes use Ebay as a hire shop. Buy it and later sell in the same place. The head I am looking at wont overload the stands I have and can also use the same brollies. Past that I don't know but suspect a beauty dish will probably give the sort of lighting I want - if a brolly doesn't. Snoods - the ones I had in mind don't seem to be around any more. Fairly short and curves in places and probably made use of a reflector behind the flash. Diffusers are another option.

Thanks for mentioning the problem with grids - I did wonder about that and am dumbfounded that no one seems to know if illumination angles when given are 1/2 or full.

I wont be ordering them yet as the wireless remotes wont arrive for a week and want to make sure those are ok before going further. Same with a flash meter.

If Ted's reading one ebay hire that didn't work out last time it was up for sale, a light meter, records 580 Lux at 1m, single CFL.

John
-

[xpatUSA]

[I] am dumbfounded that no one seems to know if illumination angles when given are 1/2 or full.
John
-

From what little I know about it, the illumination angle, if given, can be related to the guide number which in turn is related to the max or min focal length being used. On my Sigma EF-500 all the angular information is for full-frame, so it's all wrong for my 1.7 crop camera anyway.

Personally, the concept of "full" or "half" angles seems a little insane - surely the head movement range in all flashes doesn't result in a angular range of exactly 2:1 ? Or I am being too pedantic ??

Anyway, the incident illuminance at the subject is highest at the narrowest angle so, if half/full is not stated you could assume "half", eh?

Yes John, I'm reading, and 580 lux at 1 meter does seem a bit below par.

[ajohnw]

Reflectors for flash heads Ted. There are several illumination angles available - in other words the angle of the cone of light they put out. In some fields they give the 1/2 angle so if say 15 degrees the over all angle of the cone would be 30. Not that the cone is that precise really but at least it gives one a clue what is being bought mail order. Some just say things like narrow. Some nothing at all.

John
-

[Ken MT]

If you really want to get good information on angles, lighting etc, then get a copy of Light, Science & Magic, 4th edition, by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua, ISBN 978-0240-87225-0.

[Loose Canon]

Well John, I’ll have to admit I probably wouldn’t have occurred to me to use flash mixed with continuous in a studio environment.

Especially for fill purposes.

I would think it would be a tough proposition getting that combination balanced and/or ratios set and exposed well. Not that it couldn't be done but mostly the PITA factor!

I will definitely be interested in how it works for you John. Hopefully you’ll post some results with your set-ups.

Uh, the grids, reflectors I use are given in full angles. I don’t have any beauty dishes but the ones I would use also in full angle. I was unaware anyone even gave half-angle specs. Can’t say I’ve ever seen them rated that way.

[ajohnw]

You might be correct about balance Terry. The CFL lights are a touch under 5000K and fairly good colour balance wise. Flash stated at 5600K +200K which I don't think should be a problem. The shots that made me wonder about a simpler method lighting wise were these,





Playing around after some lens perspective effects comments in a thread. Refreshing my memory really. The 1st one will be more of a challenge.

Off topic. As some one said to me once having been hired to take them "baby shots can be tough". Parents were happy but he wasn't.

John
-

[xpatUSA]

Reflectors for flash heads Ted. There are several illumination angles available - in other words the angle of the cone of light they put out. In some fields they give the 1/2 angle so if say 15 degrees the over all angle of the cone would be 30. Not that the cone is that precise really but at least it gives one a clue what is being bought mail order. Some just say things like narrow. Some nothing at all.

John
-

Thanks, John, now I understand a bit mo' better. In that case, the only use I can imagine would be to help the calculation which determines the field of coverage for a particular distance. For such a calculation, if angles in degrees are used, the tangent is of the half-angle and the result is multiplied by two after that. For example, at 100 feet, the field of cover would be 100 x tan(15) x 2 = 54 ft.

That is a long shot. I can't imagine reflector manufacturers being that helpful

[Loose Canon]

Most likely the 300’s you are looking at are going to change temp depending on the power level you choose as well.

For the most part, only the higher end strobes retain consistent color throughout the full output range. It of course differs from manufacturer to manufacturer as well. And for most of them that is at the expense of duration. Even speedlights have this particular characteristic.

Maybe not a problem, but if you put two different manufacturers lights on either side of a reflective cylinder you will notice this in the highlights if you’ve an eye for that kind of detail. Which you obviously do!

If you use the same set-up with same manufacturer’s lights, but at different power levels each, same thing.

Again, maybe not a problem but just something to be aware of if you weren't already (which I would be shocked if you weren't!).