I think the best system on the market right now is the Elinchrom Ranger quadra...
that gives you the best of portable flash and the best of studio flash.... but for a price...

well I'm glad people are happy.

that is the real thing .

me I view heavy duty use and fast strobe, and consistent color/power output to be important in a studio strobe. as well as accessories...
and lightweight, controllable output and battery power to be important in a portable flash. as well as low cost...

A cheap studio unit to me is giving you the worst of both types of flash...

like an El Camino...



you got the passenger capacity of a light truck...
and the cargo capacity of a car.
the worst of both worlds.
I'm sure somebody thought the El Camino was a great idea... but I fail to see the logic.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say you have one, as the original poster never said what he bought...

but just to be clear about what I meant with my remark...

I bought second hand Elinchroms years back and use them daily. I paid less than $1000.00 for the set of three...
the cheapest studio knock offs I've seen came in at about $850.00 for comparable light output, but less accessories available than the elinchrom lineup...
I use them almost daily.
I have upgraded to better modeling lights for video work..

Two things come to mind for me about cheap studio strobes.. on being they really don't do anything better than battery powered flashes... and won't hold up to professional studio abuse.
Case in point...
I've done a number of stop frame animations using a d-slr and studio strobes.
Try doing a day of shooting popping off several thousand shots and make a movie with the resulting images.
I bet any weaknesses in your flashes capacitors, flash tubes circuitry will show show themselves in what is a day at the office for a pro unit.
I'd bet your cheaper units could not maintain consistant light output, and color over the day in a heavy duty use situation.
try making an animation and see.


There is a little grey area between situations where I use my vivitar and pentax flashes, and where I pull out the studio strobes... as in I can use one or the other... and get results.... that little grey area is where cheap studio strobes are useful... but I got two sets of lights that already cover the area....

My desire to not start a flame war, combined with your request to comment if you tried a brand which you failed to name, precluded me from offering any advice.

If I was to advise something, I'd advise buying a used pro system over a new "Budget" system.

a decent pro lighting unit, range of accessories, and well built stands will last a lifetime and then some.

If you ever get a cheap pot-metal covered with chrome lug on a cheap lightstand (as opposed to solid brass/steel ones on good stands) snap and drop a hot light unit onto a person during a shoot.....

(trust me you stand anything resembling a pole up in public they are like idiot magnets, no matter how well it is marked, taped off, sandbagged, and lit up, some idiot will inevitable be magnetically drawn to it and will walk into it..)...

....Kiss your house goodbye, because unless you're incorporated (which I am), they'll be suing YOU.



so even if you buy cheap lights, you should consider decent Bogen/manfrotto stands cheap insurance.

Samsung is release a new evil...nx100...
maybe a sister model... branded as Pentax will be released as well?

you are losing your reds and sharpness due to the high iso.

your flower still seems out of focus.

try this...

Iso 200
f 8

shuterspeeds... bracket a few shots between 1/8 sec to one second.

use a tripod and manual focus.
set your white balance manually using white paper.

Mostly they hate me because I'm Beautiful.

Welcome.

clearly not a Pentaxian.... we tend to not get fixated on gear to the point of being oblivious of the photo op.

50mm 1.4
200 mm 2.8
300mm 4

Still, they purdy though!