Studio flash dilemma

I've not done any serious studio work since my college days (a vey long time ago) and have no 'proper' lighting at the moment to do any.

I have a portable flash arsenal of 2 X AF540FGZ, 2 X AF360FGZ, AF500FTZ.

Question: Is it feasible to use either the 360's or 540's, atop stands fitted with hot shoe flash brackets and reflective or shoot through umbrellas? Are these flashes powerful enough?

If I were to need/want 'proper' lighting, does anybody have any experiences, good or bad, of the Elinchrom D-Lite 2 kits.

My main interest will be product photography where a light tent would be inadequate, and staged macro photography. I can't see myself entering the world of portraiture, glamour, fashion etc where people are the subject.

Peter, although I dont use any of those 'guns, I'm quite sure they will be powerful enough for what you describe.

I had some kit still set up from a shoot yesterday so I ran a quick test. AF400t on full power (GN40 so less powerful than your 540 and 500) is, at 200ISO, delivering f11 through a shoot through brolley at about 1m distance from the subject.

Ken

Thanks for your reply Ken.

Do you (or anybody) have any idea how guide numbers of camera flashes equate to output power of studio flash?

EG: The AF540FGZ has a GN of 54 at 100 ISO, the Elinchrom D-Lite 2 has a max output power of 200W. What's the conversion factor from one to the other?

Peter, I forget a lot of the physics, I'm afraid, but any conversion would need to take into account the angle of coverage of the studio flash.
Hope this helps.
Martin

According to the instructions for my little flash heads a GN of 36 equates to 150 watt/seconds and a GN of 48 equates to 180 watt/seconds. As you know the two biggest advantages of studio flashes are no batteries and modelling lamps.

The heads I have are Ba Wang (seriously) and came from Hong Kong. Two 180 heads, air damped stands, sync cables, two quite big soft boxes, two silver brollies and a 16ch wireless trigger were only £135 including shipping. Two 42" 5 in 1 reflectors were £20 shipped and barn doors, snoot, honeycombs and gels a further £30 and another £60 saw the arrival of a superb refelctor arm). The cost of shipping was 50% of the total cost.

The quality of the heads is OK, they're plastic so I worry about clamping them too tightly to a spigot but they work well and have IR, PC and optical sync. The quality of everything else is as good as anything I've seen. But given that two manfrotto stands of the same size and type would cost £140 and Calumet refelctors would be £70 as opposed to £10, I think I did quite well.

Ken, I think i've seen those 180 watt heads on ebay. Do they have variable output?

I have a set of gy180 I think they are the same as Kens, they do have variable output via a small twist knob on the back.
These work fine and the output is quite accurate all tough not as accurate as dearer items(Bowen's/elinchrome).

I wouldn't want to rely on mine though, they are OK, but the plastic screw fixings on the barn doors are breaking, and i can't find a modelling bulb locally.
any ideas on that would be nice its a 240v 50w capsule bulb.

Flashes work fine on stands. You can also use an IR transmitter as long as you change the flash sync mode to single flash and turn off the auto-off feature to stop them reverting to default settings (PTTL).

However getting them to work well with modifiers is more of a pain because there is no way to point them directly in the centre of an unbrella. Also umbrellas are not really the best for product photos because they create quite sharp highlights. I use the Lumiquest promax system for diffusion and their snoot for location work which works ok if you dont need to be to precise, but the modifiers you get with a proper setup are much more useful.

I have the elinchrom DLite2 kit and a couple of BX400s. The Dlites are great. Quite portable and a very even colour temperature even at low power settings. With proper strobes you do get more exposure control, much faster recycling, modelling lights, masses of modifiers etc. The BX's are more in the pro league but apart from being able to take heavier softboxes there are few downsides to the Dlites except the lack of a fan. If things get a bit hot they will simply switch off though so far its never happened to me. I think the 4's have a fan.

The problem with many cheaper chinese systems is the lack of accessories. Bowens and Elinchrom really do have everything.

For macros I think you are better off with a ring light.

Maplins!

So a rough calculation reveals that a flash having a GN of 54 is going to be equivelant to around 200 w/s, similar to entry level studio heads ( 180/48 ) x 54 = 202.5.

My 2 X AF540FGZ's will give me around 400 w/s of lighting , the AF500FTZ around another 180w/s, and I'll use the 2 AF360FGZ's for 300 w/s more light if I need it. I think that'll do for my immediate needs.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

Thanks Ken just had a look but could only find 12v capsule bulbs, have you bought one from them before?
Peter

Hello there!

I am about to buy a set of bowens Gemini 200, because i've read a million reviews and all seem very very positive.

Will keep you posted on results.

I haven't heard such good comments on elinchrom though.

Cant say Ive had any issues with them, they are just relatively uncommon in the UK. I use both (Elins at home and Bowens in the studio). I would say the main difference is the weight and cost, the Bowens being a lot heavier and a lot more expensive like for like. As for results, both are excellent but I reckon the Elins are just as accurate/consistent if not moreso. The Dlites are very light so great for location work.

Thanks for the info regarding D-Lite's. The D-Lite 2 Mk II units have a cooling fan.

For simplicity and portability I like using a ring light for macro but it produces rather unnatural lighting. I prefer a twin flash system to get a bit of shadow, but not overstated as with direct flash.

Just a quick response to your question on DLites experience...

Nice little strobes. I like them a lot (have the DLites4).
Just beware... Elinchrom quality and support do NOT match their reputation!!

Within about 50 shots, my DLite4s died! They were shipped with a known issue of bad capacitors. Yes, I got them fixed for free under warranty, but only had them a couple of weeks and had to wait four to six more weeks to get them repaired.

I could go on for another page or two on Elinchrom experiences, but suffice to say, you may want to try other brands that still believe in customer satisfaction!