Sort of creepy if you ask me. Besides, where would you keep it?

My opinion is to go with anything other than Skyports.

Look up several of my other posts on the subject. In short, they are no better than eBay triggers but at ten times the cost. Support from Elinchrom is atrocious! Quality for their equipment (remotes and lights) is sub-par.

Others seem to have better luck with the remotes, so I don't know if they ever had to deal with the support side.

To truly profile your monitor you'll need a hardware colorimeter.
EyeOne, now by GratagmcBeth is a good way to calibrate and profile your monitor(s). ColorMunky is new but is supposed to do quite well and includes basic printer profiling as well.
I hear various levels of success and happiness for those that use PantoneHuey and Spyder.


ttk: can i ask what settings you use for the Canon? I have the CanonPro9000 but cannot get consistent prints from PhotoShop. I use their "pro" paper and the corresponding profile, but no luck. I've tried letting PS color manage, and tried letting the printer color manage. Results are pretty close but neither are very close to what I see on screen. Sometimes horribly green in comparison - but in only some colors while others are fair.

Very happy with my DLites. Just be warry that some stocks were sold with bad capacitors and they may blow in under 50-100 shots. Elinchrom knows about them but won't do anything until the customer complains.
They are fixed for free under warranty of course, but you're out for three to four weeks for repair.

I don't know if there is any way to investigate LOT numbers, etc... to ensure you have a good set. And that was eight months ago, so HOPEFULLY the bad ones have all been sold and out of circulation by now.

There are other issues I have with Elinchrom as a company, especially relating to their Skyports radio triggers and their support -- or lack of it, on going issue for six months before it came down to the fact that they essentially lied about their capabilities the whole time.

Other than that, like I said I am quite happy with the DLite-4 strobes themselves.

I am even quite happy with the Skyports for most of my uses... they simply do not live up to advertisements and I cannot use them under certain conditions. In the end, they are slightly better than the $30 eBay triggers to me.

My opinion of Elinchrom,
Product: Adequate, They get the job done. Perhaps a bit high priced for the quality of their products.

Support: Abismal! Just hope you don't need it.

Take it for what its worth.

Hey Clarky, nice image, but you've held the darned camera upside down!

Nice job on all of those, even the first hand held one. I try to do this on a tripod and an hour later all I get are images so soft you cannot see the craters at all. I've tried a bit less than full so that there is some shadow contrast and definition, but no luck for me.

I'm quite jealous. All clouds here tonight, or I'd be trying again.

I will need to look into those. Being Mac-only software I forgot about Aperture.

I've tried LightRoom but just don't like the workflow nor the slowness when you get over, oh lets say, 100 images.
Windows has drained almost every spark of life from my soul. I'm actually a bit excited to see what Mac has.

Thanks for the info.

First be sure you eliminate everything else that might be contributing... i.e. put on tripod.

If you can bring the subject inside with controlled lighting and no wind, that would also help.

Color should not affect AF, but if the subject has low contrast the AF might be locking slightly off from where you expect.

The AF sensors are not tiny dots, they are rectangles that extend as much as 20% or more of the viewing area's height. That can lead to a large range of possible focus points to lock onto if the subject is not a flat piece of paper.

Can anyone suggest any good Asset Management software for the Mac?
I currently have a Windows machine and use ACDsee Manager Pro 2.5.
Both have become so intolerable I have decided my next upgrade will be a Macintosh. Almost all of my major software has Mac versions available, except for ACDSee which I will never want to touch again after their latest "upgrade"...

So the only thing keeping me from upgrading to a real OS is decent DAM software. (OK, that and a big chunk of cash... but its getting there)

I'm having so much trouble getting good prints with closed loop color management -- monitor and printer are color managed, profiled, using correct inks, corresponding papers, etc... and still the prints come out funky. If I can't trust prints to look good out of my own environment I'm sure not going to pay to have them done outside. At least from home I can tweak past the color management issues to get decent results.

Although if I had to print more than a few for my own personal use, printing at home would quickly become a waste of time for me.

Yep, I've run the K10D with DA* 50-135mm under the shower, as well as being caught in a freakishly quick approaching thuderstorm that was much harder than my shower at home. Was out in that for probably more than fifteen minutes with only the slightest evidence of moisture on the seal of the the PC socket door. (nothing further inside). That was with the DA* 16-50mm.
Also been in milder rains several other times.


I think you can trust the ads for being weatherproof to truly mean weather proof. (hurricanes might be another story, but then the camera would likely be the least of your worries if caught in one)

Of course, with the istD and a normal lens some years ago, I was on the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls with the camera simply rubberbanded through a hole in my free poncho. (Now THAT IS WET!) The camera stayed dry, so weather proof is convenient but not necessary. Plastic bags work great!