"The previous postings name some excellent strobes. There are a couple of things you should consider that I don't think have been mentioned. I don't know where you plan on using the strobe you plan to buy but consider this. Strobes unless you're talking about the portable ones have a certain amount of amp draw from a wall electrical socket. The rating for electrical wall sockets in the average home here in california is 15 amps nominal and actually just over 16 amps. Use anything over 16 amps for an extended period of time and these wall sockets and the adjacent wiring will start to get incredibly hot and eventually you're talking FIRE! You should check out the amp draw of a particular strobe you plan to use and the amp draw rating of where you plan to use it or you might be asking for a lot of trouble. "
What Jonathan doesn't understand is that while studio type pack and monobloc units may draw a peak of 15 to 20 Amps when starting to recharge the capacitor banks this peak lasts only an incredibly brief (usually much less than 1 second) time and once that peak has passed they idle along at closer to 3 to 5 amps.
"Also there is another consideration which was a bigger problem a few years ago but isn't so prevalent now. A strobe can send voltage back through the sync connector to your camera sync and fry your sync and or your shutter. Many manufactures have a filter incorporated in their units but I wouldn't automatically assume this to be the case. It's something you should check on before deciding on. I have White Lightning and Profoto and have no problems with either strobe but I use the Profoto system a lot more now.
Once again, a misunderstanding here. The problem with high sync voltages was with little flashes battery powered flashes like the Vivitar 283 (but ones that are now ten years old or more) and cameras with computers in them like Canons (threshold for sync voltage is 6 volts) and Nikons (25 volt threshold). Mechanical Copal and Compur and Prontor shutters are immune to these problems. Jonathan
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