What's a good buy in used studio lights?

[Mark Sampson]

Well, I went for the pack/head approach to keep the weight off the stands, and to let me control things from one or two spots, rather than having to reach behind a monolight that may very well be in an awkward position. For example, an overhead softbox, or a hair light on a boom, or a light that needs to be up really high, etc., etc., etc.
Although I must say that monolights can work very well.
Like my colleague Frank P, I've had great luck with Dyna-lites over many years of location shoots.

[atlcruiser]

I have a really old Photogenic head and 4 lights. it worked great and was not that big of a PITA to deal with on my limited scale. The pack died and I looked into getting it fixed then found out it was cheaper to get a new kit.

I scored 2 Britek PH300s with small softboxes and stands for $100 shipped on evil bay. They might not be the most mac daddy lights in the world but they are fine for general use for me. I would NOT buy them to use them every day......I dont think they would hold up to it

[Leigh]

... pack and heads vs monolights.

You can get a lot more power from a pack that sits on the floor than from a monolight designed to sit on a pole. Big packs are heavy.

Packs are designed to run multiple heads, with power distribution settings at the pack so you can set your lighting ratios from a single location.

Many heads, both monolight and pack systems, have power settings on the heads themselves, but that doesn't help a lot if it's on top of an 8' pole.

The main advantage of monolights is that it's easy to upgrade the system as you develop experience and have a better idea of what you want to do. You can add larger or smaller units easily. Your choices may be more limited in this regard for pack/head systems.

- Leigh

[Jim Michael]

They don't have remote controls for those things yet? You'd think there'd be an app for that.

[Leigh]

They don't have remote controls for those things yet? You'd think there'd be an app for that.

We're discussing used lights in this thread.

Most vintage systems do not have remote control.

- Leigh

[lenser]

We're discussing used lights in this thread.

Most vintage systems do not have remote control.

- Leigh

Actually the White Lightnings have had an add on remote control system ever since the Ultras were introduced about thirty years ago. It consists of a hand control unit with four channels which is connected to the individual lights by standard phone cords. They came with 25 foot color coded cords, but I've had cords made of up to 100 feet for special assignments.

This allowed the lights to be placed in any location and at any height, even completely inaccessible by hand, and with the sliders on the remote unit one can vary both the power and modeling lamps to all available levels.

Besides normal studio table top functions, I once used this system to space lights over a hundred foot or more span on a late night assignment to photograph a Christmas display that was partially against a broad cliff and partly inside a cave. The usual tweaking of each light would have required hiking back and forth to each of the ultras while testing for even balance, but the remote with sliders enabled me to nail the power balance within minutes and get perfect exposure along the entire span. Two fast Polaroids to verify and a couple of back up exposures were in the can in no time.

Their newer iterations are radio controlled and more sophisticated including programmed firing sequences for individual units, but still serves the same basic function of making the lights fully controlled from a central unit.

[Leigh]

I did say "most".

The only universal truths are lies,.

- Leigh

[Jim Michael]

We're discussing used lights in this thread.

Most vintage systems do not have remote control.

- Leigh

You might be but the OP was asking about "fairly powerful, classy, versatile studio lights, preferably used." An objection was raised re monolights. Seems perfectly reasonable that a classy, versatile monolight would by this century have remote control.

[Frank Petronio]

I missed that "classy" part so all my advice was for naught too.

Classy = multiple times 5 to 40x!

[sully75]

in retrospect, now that I have a bit of money, I'm thinking somewhere between classy and ghetto. An old dynalite kit with two heads would probably do it right now.