Alien Bees or????

[BradS]

Ok, I have finally decided to get some lights. As this is strictly a...er, a hobby (i.e. I earn a living doing something unrelated to LF photography), I'd like to not spend a fortune. I;m shooting small groups of people with 4x5. I use mainly 320TXP and HP5+.

I was looking into Speedotron packs and heads but, I think I need something more portable.

So, this brings me to point...

Will a couple of Alien Bee 1600's be enough? What f/ stop can I get?

Same question for the White Lightning 3200's

I would really like to get a couple of Speedotron Force 10 monolihts but the cost is prohibitive. Can I get by with one? even one would be well beyond my means right now. ...I have maybe $800 to spend - if I sell another lens....

[lenser]

Two answers, Brad. Buff sells damn good equipment so either system will be good. I would recommend as much power as you can afford. You can always power down the units if you need to, but if you bought too little, all you can do is buy another unit to make up for your mistake. In large format, you will find yourself often wanting more and more power.

Of the two, I would go with the 3200's. You will have not only the greater power, but a wider range of adjustment on the power scale.

I have used 1800 Ultras and the X3200 series for many years and have found the ompany to be wonderfully responsive in the three times I've needed repairs (in nearly 30 years of use).

You'll love them.

[Frank Petronio]

My two cents is that you can do individual portraits at f/5.6 or f/8 (ISO 320) all day long with a couple of 300-watt Lowel Tota-Lights (constant Halogen lights) and umbrellas. Rugged, idiot-proof, and a good value ($100 per Tota) so you can buy the better quality stands, umbrellas, grip gear, etc. instead of cheap plastic knock-off crap.

But once you introduce a second person into a lit shot, you need extra depth of field. And hot lights bright enough for that are, well, hot. So strobe it is. But rather than blowing all $800 on plastic hillbilly lights, be patient and haunt eBay for a few weeks and wait for a nice older Dynalite kit to come up. The older D-series is ridiculously cheap, and in spite of being over 20 years old, it's not really more than a third larger/heavier than the current models. And it just works. You can afford to buy spares of everything. For example, I have bought two fan-cooled heads and an 800-watt D-series pack for an average price of $300 several times over now. Once I got three heads and two packs for $450. At those prices it is silly to even bother fixing things or replacing tubes -- just buy another head.

One 800 watt pack into a head, with a 48-inch umbrella 3-4 feet away from a couple of subjects will easily give you f/16 (ISO 320 film). For a large group, two packs and two heads on really tall stands will give you f/11 but you'll be standing further back and should be good to go. If you want to kill the larger shots, get four packs, rent, borrow, etc.

If the pack and heads are working after 20 years, another 4-5 years ain't going to kill them any deader.

You don't need 1/10 of an f-stop adjustments or 1 sec recycle times for large format....

With any of these AC strobes be sure to have some sort of sync protection for your delicate digital camera. Those $45 remote syncs on eBay work as well as the $2-300 name-brand ones.

With the savings, buy some of those nice, strong Lowel light stands (for more than just the heads), a couple of small and large Photek umbrellas, and a couple of good transport cases for it all. Maybe even a canvas background.

Less than $800 and you'll out rock any new Alien Bee set-up. But I'm a snob, pre-apologies to all the Paul C. Buff zealots.

[Paul Kierstead]

But rather than blowing all $800 on plastic hillbilly lights

You are probably being a bit unfair, but I'll admit I'm still grinning and laughing for sometime after reading this.

I don't know a lot about big strobes; I own and use a couple of Photogenics (which work wonderfully) and that is about my brand knowledge. However, I will warn you that if you intend on doing things other then small groups, LF can take a tremendous amount of strobe power; I was quite shocked, requiring multiple pops of my strobes in some cases.

[Don Dudenbostel]

Speedotrons have been the primary lighting system in my studio for twenty years. I guess at one point when LF was king of the commercial world I had over 40k watt seconds in 2400 & 4800 ws packs. I sold the large packs when digital became the standard and bought 8 force 10's. The force 10 units are great lights and have stood up to heavy travel and hard grinding use with no problems. Speedo units are industrial strength unlike other brands. They're designed to run all day as hard as you can run them with no problems. My only complaint is the slave is a little directional so sometimes I have to plugin an external slave. I also bought 5 alien bees for portraits and when I want to shoot at 1.4 or 2. I've had the bees since they came out and use them heavily and have had absolutely no problems. They're very light, rugged, cheap, tubes are dirt cheap very fast recycling. They also have steples power setting. IMO they are a super value and have great flexability. How many people in your groups? I personally would feel better with more power than 2 bees. Take a look at used speedo packs like a 1200ws & two 103 or 102 heads. Even a couple of 800's would work. Most manufactures over rate their light output but speedo is fairly honest.

Suggestion, get uv coated tubes.

[Frank Petronio]

Actually I think I may break down and try some of those "plastic hillbilly lights" since they appeal to my tightwad, keep it simple approach, they do seem like a pretty good value, especially when you compare how cheaply made and packaged the monolights are from the supposedly great European strobe-makers like Elinchrom and Bron-Color....

The only thing that stops me -- and this is very vain and a shortcoming on my part -- is my prejudice of the stupid cornpone colors and graphics that they call their "brand identity" and product design. Those strobes are so ugly that when they pass by a bathroom, all the toilets flush.

[John Kasaian]

Actually I think I may break down and try some of those "plastic hillbilly lights" since they appeal to my tightwad, keep it simple approach, they do seem like a pretty good value, especially when you compare how cheaply made and packaged the monolights are from the supposedly great European strobe-makers like Elinchrom and Bron-Color....

The only thing that stops me -- and this is very vain and a shortcoming on my part -- is my prejudice of the stupid cornpone colors and graphics that they call their "brand identity" and product design. Those strobes are so ugly that when they pass by a bathroom, all the toilets flush.

LOL, beauty is as beauty does, Frank I have a Mole Richardson and a pair of large Silverdome NXTs and when I plug them in the North Valley has a brown-out

[Donald Miller]

I started with 880ws Novatrons and a couple of Bowens monolights twenty five years ago. When I went to more existing light photography, I sold off the Novatrons.

I recently bought Profoto compacts (2-600ws and 1-1200ws heads). I learned from my first experience with the Novatrons that you get what you pay for. The Profotos are quite a bit more heady than $800. My other consideration was that I can use these heads with either 110 VAC or 220 VAC since I planned for European usage.

[Jim C.]

The only thing that stops me -- and this is very vain and a shortcoming on my part -- is my prejudice of the stupid cornpone colors and graphics that they call their "brand identity" and product design. Those strobes are so ugly that when they pass by a bathroom, all the toilets flush.

ROTFLOL, they definitely aren't sexy pretty , but a little black gaff tape will take care of the graphics and they do offer black as a color.

On the other hand Calumet is selling a mono light series called Genesis, ( definitely more pro looking )and I'm tempted to try one since the price is very competitive to the Alien Bees, the only minus is that they're offered in 200ws and 400ws.

[Ron Marshall]

The White Lightnings are not much more expensive, but are better built than AB. For two people you will need two lights. The output charts on the AB/WL site are accurate. I have three 1600s, and they have enough output.