What's a good buy in used studio lights?

[sully75]

I'd like to have some fairly powerful, classy, versatile studio lights, preferably used. I'd like to get something that has a wide variety of modifiers available, is going to be reliable and not too expensive to fix. Broncolor and Profoto are names I know, but I'm not sure what models to look for.

Any suggestions? Frank?

Thanks
Paul

[Frank Petronio]

I don't think you learn artificial lighting as well from strobes as constant lights because you can't see it, even with modeling lamps, so if you are learning do yourself a favor and start with a couple of good Tungsten Halogen lights and do it one step at a time.

But sometimes you just need the power to stop your lens down and strobes are called for.... I just found another cache of old Dynalites, two packs and four heads for $250 shipped. At that price you can toss the broken ones and just use a different head when the flash tube dies. I have three packs and seven heads plus a bunch of broken ones for spare parts. It's overkill. I just keep them in milk crates and toss them around.

Light is light, especially for slow large format where you shoot negative film one at a time. If you were using a DSLR at several frames per second against a grey studio background you'd want the speed and consistency of a ProFoto. But for shooting 4x5, all you really need is a decent light, not some $10,000 Eurotrash wonder. Most 1980s-1990s studio gear is heavy but well-made, and consistent within a 1/10 of a stop.

Use a Safe-Sync or wireless remote to fire your strobes if you are syncing to your fancy DSLR that might not like their potentially damaging sync voltage.

As for light modifiers, the Dynas use inexpensive and plentiful Lowel attachments for barn doors, snoots, scrims, etc. plus common speedrings for softboxes, beauty dishes, umbrellas, and whatever else you want to cobble together yourself. True that the ProFoto allows you to move the flash tube in relation to the modifier but, given that the old, vintage AC strobes offer 1,737,218 possible light options as they are, I probably don't need to dabble with the 3x more options modern stuff might provide. At least not at the price differential.

When you get good enough to do this for work and are flying around the world shooting supermodels, you can probably afford to rent and not worry about it. Yes I would love a set of four battery-powered ProFoto heads and packs but I would be insane to get those.

In the real world, especially for hobby shooting and portfolio work, just get the far less expensive used working-studio strobes like Speedotrons, Normans, Bowens, Dynalites, etc. and do some good pictures. You don't need fancy light modifiers, just learn to use foamcore boards, foil, umbrellas, reflectors.

Start with one light as close to the subject as possible, use a DSLR to experiment and Fuji Instant to proof. Get a flash meter and learn how to use it. Keep it real simple.

There is a video of Annie Leibovitz shooting Keith Richards in a hotel room. She has access to every light control ever made and yet she is bouncing heads off walls and having an assistant move a light head with a cheap umbrella. That's the reality.

PS the last time I did a commercial shoot with strobes it was (2009) pretty ghetto with the milk crates and I definitely needed an assistant to lug it all. If you are doing nicer higher level stuff appearances do matter and probably want to have "nice" looking gear for certain types of clients to take you seriously. However I have found those are usually the types of clients to avoid ;-p

[Walter Calahan]

But how would Frank photograph Keith Richards? Grin.

[Frank Petronio]

I'm not a nude photographer but that would be one raisin I'd like to see.

[Frank Petronio]

Actually I forgot about this but I was reading about these new Paul C Buff mini-lithium batteries that are pretty compact and not too expensive ($250?) that can power an AC strobe out in the boonies for a couple hundred pops. That sounds really appealing to me and that would be very useful for location work. Not to add more complication to things but one head on a battery would be awesome for most of the LF portrait type stuff I see a lot of people doing, including myself.

I read that they will work with other brands, including older strobes, so it does away with generators, invertors, etc. and isn't a car battery in a tackle box.... pretty nice.

[Robert Oliver]

love my dynalite kit... those things have worked hard for about 10 years and have hardly given me any grief at all.

Love 'em

[sully75]

Frank where are you getting these Dynalite deals? There's a set on ebay right now for $900.

[SamReeves]

Photofloods are the cheapest of them all. I got a three light kit on eBay for less than $40. Yes you'll be on a slow shutter speed, tripod, etc., but as long as your train you model to hold it like a concrete statue, no problem!

[Frank Petronio]

Frank where are you getting these Dynalite deals? There's a set on ebay right now for $900.

I bought the last $250 set on ebay in a regular auction. You just have to be patient. They were also beaters - older D-series, nearly 30 years old!

I also got a set on Craigslist.

Of course the newer Dynalites are a lot nicer, more control over power, etc. But I mostly just use this stuff on max.

Dynalite will still work on older gear, not that it is worth it. Just buy more.

[sully75]

Dynalite will still work on older gear, not that it is worth it. Just buy more.

What does that mean? What older gear?

Thanks Frank.

[Frank Petronio]

They will service 35 year old lights.

A lot of the parts are still the same, the designs are long-lived, they've been using the same flash tube for the last 20 years.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

See what you can find locally.

I have been pretty happy with my Speedotron system. Over the course of a year or so I picked up three big boxes, six heads (including one which handles 9600ws), and a few sturdy stands, all used, for less than $1200. I bought it mostly on Craigslist from studios who had moved to digital, and no longer needed the power/bulk/weight of Speedotron Blackline systems. I have seen and used other systems (Norman, Dynalite), and am happy with what I have.

[Alan Gales]

If you buy an older pack and head system and want to use your digital camera with it as well as your large format camera just remember to use a slave with the digital camera.

I have heard that the older systems can fry a digital camera.

[Alan Gales]

The new pack and head systems work fine on digital!

[Frank Petronio]

You also want to learn how to disconnect the heads without blowing your arm off. The newer systems have more safety features and I think the Dynalites have a shortened pin to prevent arcing but all of these strobes, even the newest $$$ ProFoto, can kill you if you are stupid around them.

Just a side note ;-)

If you buy Normans let me take out a life insurance policy on you.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I have heard that the older systems can fry a digital camera.

As Frank mentioned above, it is absolutely necessary to buy a safe-sync (http://www.weinproducts.com/safesyncs.htm) if you are going to use your older strobes directly wired to a digital camera. Of course, if you use IR or radio sync this isn't necessary.

Another point using older systems with digital: The lowest power I can get out of my system is about 100ws, which is still occasionally too powerful for shooting digital, so I have to use ND filters with the heads. This is a PITA, so eventually I will buy cheap monolights for digital.

[sully75]

If you buy Normans let me take out a life insurance policy on you.

You could have made millions in mortgage fraud!

[neil poulsen]

I like my Dynalite kit. Not that I use it that much.

Frankly, I'd stay away from old Norman stuff, even though it's out there, one can find modifiers, etc. Those old powerpacks can be lethal. You have to do things, just so, or they can arc.

[Frank Petronio]

Actually my advice to get the old big beater stuff is not ideal. I tend to use everything on full or half power, no subtle adjustments whatsoever. The newer gear allows you to dial in settings to a tenth of a stop.

Even so, lots of people save their old strobes for lighting backgrounds or bouncing off walls while using their better, newer strobes as the main lights on the subject.

If all I used was DSLRs, smaller monolights would be fine.

[jnantz]

smith victor

[Leigh]

Consider Novatron.

They're good reliable units, and can be had at reasonable prices because they don't have the fancy name recognition.

- Leigh

[Alan Gales]

Consider Novatron.

They're good reliable units, and can be had at reasonable prices because they don't have the fancy name recognition.

- Leigh

I own a set of Novatrons that I bought off ebay for dirt cheap. I really like them but I have never used a different brand so I can't compare them.

[sully75]

I think I used Novatrons in the past and found that mounting modifiers (and finding them) was frustrating. They are definitely cheap though.

[jnantz]

Consider Novatron.

They're good reliable units, and can be had at reasonable prices because they don't have the fancy name recognition.

- Leigh

i've had a pair of m300 monoblock lights since the mid 1990s
and they work flawlessly. for a long time i wanted to supplement
them with m500 monoblocks ... the company is in TX and if you
call they will put you on the list for refurbished units that were trade-in

[Richard Mahoney]

PS the last time I did a commercial shoot with strobes it was (2009) pretty ghetto with the milk crates and I definitely needed an assistant to lug it all. If you are doing nicer higher level stuff appearances do matter and probably want to have "nice" looking gear for certain types of clients to take you seriously. However I have found those are usually the types of clients to avoid ;-p

Had to smile at this Frank. The other day we were lugging my heavy crude gear around the inside of an earthquake damaged building. The fellow showing us around and giving us a hand saw my home made No. 8 wire frame finder, held up his hands in front of his eyes and said `What's wrong with that'. Yes, It's true, I've just been indulging myself and I don't need it at all. Best to leave it at home next time -- less to carry ;)


Best,

Richard

[jnantz]

lumedyne lights are full battery pack lights,
and have been around for a long time ...
their batteries are rated for 10 years
( mine lasted for longer )

[lenser]

Sully,

I have used mono lights since the late 1970's, first Bowens and now (for well over 25 years) White Lightnings. I have 2 of the Ultra 1800's and 2-600's. In all that time, there have been maybe four repairs and those were always at about $75.00.

These lights take a variety of snoots, grids, reflectors, umbrellas and soft boxes. My biggest soft box is a 4x6 from calumet which hangs on tightly.

They appear on the bay constantly and are often at well under $300 per unit.

While they are not as powerful as something like the Speedotron black line series, they do put out plenty of power for anything I've needed for table top, portrait and architectural work, including with 8x10 work with slow lenses.

There have been a couple of new series that they have introduced since the Ultras phased out and I have used those with similar satisfaction.

You might want to visit their website at Paulcbuff.com to take a look at the extreme line of accessories.

By the way, another extreme advantage in my way of thinking is that these units are made in Nashville and any repairs that may come up are also handled there. The few times I've needed repairs, they have taken place and been returned to me within a week, so very little down time for that one unit.

One of the big reasons I bought the monolights to begin with is that if a central power pack for a pack and head system goes down, you have to have a back up in house or who knows how long until you are active again. With the mono lights, you can easily modify your set up to continue shooting with your remaining kit while the one is being repaired.

[sully75]

Lenser, thanks. I have kind of always avoided the Paul Buff stuff because a) the alien bees color schemes make the whole thing seem ridiculous and b) his rants about immigration rubbed me the wrong way.

BUT I have been considering monolights vs pack and heads. Thanks for reminding me.

I'm interested in why Frank seems to go for pack and heads vs monolights.

[Frank Petronio]

Because a big monolight on a stand is a heavy thing on a skinny pole.

But you can rationalize it both ways. I figure with the monolights you need a heavier light stand so a lot of the size advantage is a wash. I don't fault anyone for using monolights though, I'd get them myself.

I also have really cheap, multiples of lights so I just use em.

A couple of monolights to provide back-ups to a pack and heads might make sense, usually the same brand uses the same parts and accessories. But watch out for the real cheapies like the Elinchrom D-Lites, which don't really interchange with their "pro" gear.

The Paul C. Buff stuff makes a lot of sense but I never cared for the ugly Hillbilly design sense. What he should have done is to make a higher-end line for metrosexual snobs like me, make everything grey and black and sans-serif, spent more than $40 with a graphic designer, and he could have sold me lights years ago. Some metal fittings and slightly higher quality connectors and such would have allowed him to charge a lot more for a premium line and give Alien Bee users an upgrade path.

But people like redneck and cheap, look at Walmart and Nascar. Paul C. Buff probably could buy Graceland and rock the Tiger Room.

[Alan Gales]

I think buying a set of strobes is like buying your first large format camera. You want something that is usable at a cheap price.

Why buy a new Ebony, shoot it twice and find out sheet film just isn't your thing. There are a lot of lighting kits out there that that are for sale that really were not used!

[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.

[Ari]

I had Dynalites for over ten years, and never had a problem.
They are not as silky as Profotos, but they get the job done.
I wish I could afford the new stuff out now.

[Mike Bates]

Because a big monolight on a stand is a heavy thing on a skinny pole.

The Paul C. Buff stuff makes a lot of sense but I never cared for the ugly Hillbilly design sense. What he should have done is to make a higher-end line for metrosexual snobs like me, make everything grey and black and sans-serif, spent more than $40 with a graphic designer, and he could have sold me lights years ago. Some metal fittings and slightly higher quality connectors and such would have allowed him to charge a lot more for a premium line and give Alien Bee users an upgrade path.


I've been using the Paul C. Buff White Lightning monolights for several years. I have three x1600 lights I picked up used on craigslist and other local sales. They've been stellar, but they don't get heavy use from me. I'd like to add an x800 for background lighting and an x3200 for MORE POWER now that I'm adding 8x10 LF to my MF gear.

The White Lightning series IS the upgrade path from Alien Bees. Light is light, but the WL series are built more substantially for heavy use. WL monolights are black with basic white lettering. I don't have any AB's to compare them to, but the WL's have very strong attachment points for speed rings. One of my 2x4' soft boxes is quite heavy compared to the Buff accessories and the WL has no problem holding is securely. I wouldn't hesitate to hook a 7' octobox to it if I had one.

They fetch a better used price than old Normans or Dynalights, for sure. You can still find a few used deals if you're patient. Buff does support them well with in-country repairs (if you're in the US) at a reasonable price.

The slippery slope is the stands and modifiers. You can never have too many different types of either. I just picked up an awesome RedWing cantilevered boom with 18" and 48" extension rails on Craigslist for $100.

[Frank Petronio]

Right now, through a lot of horse trading and breaking up kits and reselling the extras, I've managed to assemble two identical kits in medium Lightware cases: two each of a Dynalite 500xl plus two 1015 non-blower heads, plus a Paul C. Bluff mini-Lithium battery and a pair of Pocket Wizards Plus IIs, Minolta Auto-Meter IVFs, various cords, slaves, and analog syncs. Plus a set of grids, a bare tube head, spare flash and several modeling tubes, four umbrellas up to 72-inches, eight newer Lowell stands, a boom, and set of Manfrotto Auto-Poles, plus a collapsible backdrop. For $2450 total, but there was a lot of time put into trading and the batteries only work with certain combinations of Dynalite gear.

But... With that I can do most anything I can think of on location, at least for single-twin portraits. I set up on battery the other day and got f/45 out of the silver giant Buff umbrella at full-length distances, so I can easily drop the background a couple of stops even with the slower sync speed of a focal plane shutter, even more so with a leaf. (I shoot ISO 400 and prefer wider apertures so if I was shooting 8x10 and needed depth of field I'd need four times more light.)

I own a bunch of Buff accessories and they perform great but they are also weakest links in my kit. It is bizarre because they sell a nice giant umbrella for under $100 and the Profoto is $1500... But the Buff has plastic ribs. Why they don't add a little quality and charge $200 for something that won't fall apart is maddening - there is a big gap in the market. Still... Their Mini-Lithium batteries are brilliant, even if the attachments are crap.

[Mike Bates]

I agree with the assessment of the Paul Buff accessories. I have one of their soft boxes and it's not nearly as sturdy as my others. It works fine. I'm pretty gentle on my equipment anyway, but I don't knock it around.

I believe the Alien Bees are good lights targeted to an affordable price point that forces some compromises in heavy duty applications. The White Lightnings will stand up to pro use on a regular basis. I'm not a working pro, but I like the sturdiness of the WL line for attaching large modifiers.

[John Kasaian]

A friend's old brown Speedotron kit seems to have achieved immortality---it was old when I was young!

[Carterofmars]

Hey, for very basic still life, and maybe some portrait work, what is recommend for under 5 bills? I see a lot of cheap kits on eBay... are they just garbage?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Lighting-Studio-/30078/i.html?_nkw=studio+lights&_catref=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m1538

[polyglot]

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.

They do. Even the cheap Chinese ones (Menik LD and SQ series) have remotes; I'm sure that the current Elinchrom and Bowens offerings do too.

[jp]

Hey, for very basic still life, and maybe some portrait work, what is recommend for under 5 bills? I see a lot of cheap kits on eBay... are they just garbage?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Lighting-Studio-/30078/i.html?_nkw=studio+lights&_catref=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m1538

To keep it under $500, I'd get a used minolta flash meter (just cuz that's what I'm familar with), A cheap shoot-through umbrella, a cheap reflective umbrella, a bigger cheap softbox to simulate window light, a reflector kit (perhaps even diy this), and then you might have $250 for the actual lights and stands. $200 would buy you a pair of old white lightning 10000/5000 strobes which work well, but lack the fine tuning of modern gear and are resellable. I haven't tried the chinese monolights, but there are some new in that price range as well.

[sully75]

Frank,

what is your exact Dynalite kit? Not even sure what I'd be looking for as far as models, it would be good to have something good to start with.

Tjhanks
Paul

[Frank Petronio]

500xl packs and 1015 heads. No longer made but they show up on eBay occasionally.

[Bill Burk]

I wasn't going to say anything on this thread because you asked what was GOOD.

But maybe it won't hurt to steer you away from what might not be a good idea even though these things are cheap. Often go for price of shipping.

I didn't necessarily get burned (not out much money)... but I have my regrets around the system I built around Flashmaster AA 400 watt-seconds system.

There are three old models that you can tell apart by features:
ancient (two prong electric - vacuum tube trigger circuit)
really old (grounded main - solid state trigger but still only 4 outputs)
old (5 outputs because one of the 4 goes to two sockets one with 12v model light and the other umbrella 110v model light).

Then there are the new ones like they came out with an 800 Watt seconds version. I am sure they are fine.

I had been thinking of getting a Norman powerpack and heads but at a flea market an acquaintence had the Flashmaster heads and stands extra dome bulbs (no powerpack) so I gave him $50 and lugged away the giant suitcase. It was kind of funny since I parked my car a half-mile away. But I got it home and picked up one of the really old powerpacks for practically price of shipping. It worked but the two lamps with hard-wired bulbs didn't. Easily replaced and wired in. Worked fine for about a year. Then one day the pack burned up. I think I had left it unattended and powered on. So I figured I'd replace the powerpack and found an ancient one for price of shipping again. I think long term I was out less than $200 but I never leave the unit connected to electricity unattended. I isolated the trigger circuit from camera optically to minimize shock hazard (by wiring the camera to a flash aimed at a slave). But the ungrounded ancient model can't be grounded (or the 12v circuit shorts to the 110v circuit blowing all the modeling lights and smoke comes out of the capacitors - doesn't hurt it though).

[rdenney]

Hey, for very basic still life, and maybe some portrait work, what is recommend for under 5 bills?
For under half a kilobuck, an old Speedotron D1600 (or 1602, or 1604) might be the ticket. It's a four-light power pack, and I paid a little more (many years ago when they were worth more) for that power pack with two M11 heads for main and fill and two M9 heads for background and hair light, in addition to 7 and 11" reflectors, barn doors, and snoots. I fit the head and lights into a big rolling suitcase and the stands and umbrellas in a big roll-up. All still current and supportable.

I have four umbrellas--a cheapie 4-foot shoot-through, a 3-foot Lastolite with a cover to give a soft-box effect, and a couple of square Reflectasols. All cheap, and all functional. I also have a couple of small Smith-Victor stands (from the old days) for the smaller lights, and a couple of newer Giottos or some other cheapie brand of air-shocked stand for the bigger lights. They work fine, too. I know it's workable on location, because that's the only way I've used the kit. And the cheapie 6-foot folding reflector/scrim is handy, too.

Yes, it's heavy. But cheap, light, reasonably powerful: Pick two (or one). And it has usable modeling lights--halogen and usable as hot lights if the situation calls for it.

Rick "realizing everyone wants monolights these days" Denney

[polyglot]

Actually if you just want to do still life, you can get by with a couple of hot-shoe battery flashes (speedlights). I have a couple of Minolta 5600HS(D) that have done me well for quite some time and I reckon you could get some secondhand Nikon/Canon equivalents for $150; I think they put out about 80-100Ws each. You can buy chinese crap ones or Sigma new for about $100 but I wouldn't recommend those; the Sigma I had was nasty-plasticky though it did produce light on command. There are people who are fans of the older Vivitar units too.

Speedlights obviously don't have a lot of power but for still life you can get an extra couple stops by doing multiple pops while moving the flash around; I took this (http://www.brodie-tyrrell.org/pad/index.php?id=2012/01/21) with six pops at full power (about 500Ws total into a really lossy paper bouncing arrangement). I get a bit over f/16 at 1m from a 60x60cm softbox using one of the flashes, so they're kind of OK/borderline for 4x5 headshots or medium-format 3/4 portraits. It's not going to work well for a full-length or group shot on LF unless you want hard direct light.

I would kill to have something like a Speedotron pack (and it's a far better option than speedlights if you can deal with the weight and need for mains power) but stuff like that just doesn't come on the market here in Australia except with huge pricetags attached. Our only option seems to be overpriced Bowens/Elinchrom gear ($1000 for a 20 year old 500Ws monolight?) or the Chinese stuff. I've just ordered a couple of the better-looking Chinese monolights but don't have them yet so can't comment on their quality or lack thereof.

Don't forget you will want modifiers. I am a big fan of cheap chinese stuff here, e.g. $50 softbox, $40 stand, etc. It's as good as the Buff stuff if not better and while it's no Profoto, but I can replace it probably 20 times before hitting the Profoto price point. Have a look at the strobist (http://strobist.com) blog.

[mikebarger]

I have a Speedotron D1602 kit with one MW3U and three MW3R lights that have been very reliable. Rarely use them anymore, shoot me a PM.

[Frank Petronio]

Paul,

If you are cheap and impatient, then your best bets are generic Chinese moonlights for ~$100 each. Maybe pay a little more to get the B&H name brand for a warranty?

If you have enough cash to do it semi-properly, get the Paul C. Buff stuff. Start with one, get a second when you need it. ~$200 each.

If you think you'll use strobes regularly and want decent gear for a reasonable amount, be patient and wait for a good Dynalite kit to come along for $500 or so for an older D pack and two heads or $800 for a newer M pack and two heads.

All of this stuff will break and it is too unreliable for serious professional use (unless you buy multiples). Consider it semi-disposable, you're lucky to get a few years out of it. Again, if you want a long-lasting, trouble-free system, buy a top brand new.

Most of the older packs will arc and be dangerous if you unplug a cable while the pack is on. All the strobes, including little battery ones, can be dangerous if used improperly. All lights are somewhat dangerous, if my hot light falls on you, you'll get burnt. Or the curtains will catch on fire. Welcome to the Darwin Awards.

Nobody wants to promise you what is a good used pack from afar, so either do some searching and take a risk - if you want a sure thing with a warranty then pony up to buy new gear. Otherwise it's the same crapshoot as anything else, i.e. don't spend the rent money on it.

[Brian K]

I've used Normans every single day for 25 years. They rarely ever had an issue, the only problems coming from, and this is common on all packs, is when people plug in heads crooked and then force them in bending a pin. My current Normans are now as old as 35 years old and after not even plugging them in for a decade I plugged them in last year and all 8 worked perfectly. And these were units that got HEAVY use.

[rdenney]

Most of the older packs will arc and be dangerous if you unplug a cable while the pack is on.

Which is explicitly proscribed by the instructions for the packs. If you need to plug or unplug a pack, it's easy enough to turn off the pack, wait five seconds for the safety circuit to drain the flash capacitors (you'll see the ready light go out), and then do the plugging and unplugging. My Speedotron pack charges in less time than it takes me to walk back to the camera. Turning off the power pack before messing with the plugs is no inconvenience.

The greater danger with older units is that the insulation on the wires to the heads has become brittle and has cracked. It hasn't happened on my Speedotron Brown Line heads, which are easily 30 years old. The voltage carried by those lines is high enough to kick you across the room if you run afoul of it. But if one provides reasonable care of the wires and keeps an eye on them when they are old, it's really a very small risk. Also, many of these systems are still made and replacements are available.

Sometimes, a power pack will fail because the capacitors will become leaky. That could cause internal arcing--it's not dangerous because the head is in a metal case that will shunt all arcing to the safety ground before it gets to you--but you'll know it when it happens by the aroma of escaped smoke and perhaps a startling bang. This is less likely to happen if a power pack is used at least occasionally. Brian's Normans benefit from his heavy use, but my lights, which have received much less frequent use, have still managed to avoid the problem.

The connectors on the old systems are MIL-spec-style push-in connectors with twist-lock collars, and Brian is right that the easy mistake here is misalignment. I wiggle the connector while tightening and loosening the collar to prevent having to drive in the pins using the collar threads, and that helps me to feel if there is a problem.

Some of the older systems have rather high contact voltages on the synch cable. (This is true for older speedlights, too, including the oldest of the Vivitar 283's.) This is not a problem for large-format shutters (or, indeed, for most mechanical shutters). But it can fry some of the switching systems used on modern electronic and digital cameras. Speedotron, for one, sells an adapter for their older powerpacks that isolates the high switching voltage from the synch cable. It plugs into the pack and the cable plugs into it. I use that with my Canon DSLR with no issue.

These systems with separate power packs were professional systems back in the day, and they were designed for continuous use in professional studios. Yes, some were higher-end than others, but none were consumer junk in the manner of much of what is sold new today. If they are bought in reasonable condition and then subjected to reasonable care, nobody will ever feel the need to describe them as "disposable".

Rick "who thinks of them the same was as those wonderful all-metal view cameras that also nobody seems to want" Denney

[Serge S]

You wrote:
All of this stuff will break and it is too unreliable for serious professional use (unless you buy multiples). Consider it semi-disposable, you're lucky to get a few years out of it. Again, if you want a long-lasting, trouble-free system, buy a top brand new.

Most of the older packs will arc and be dangerous if you unplug a cable while the pack is on. All the strobes, including little battery ones, can be dangerous if used improperly. All lights are somewhat dangerous, if my hot light falls on you, you'll get burnt. Or the curtains will catch on fire. Welcome to the Darwin Awards. >>

Just wondering, what kind of issues/malfunctions have you had with old equip? Ever have a capacitor blow?

I've been tempted to get some monolights for occasional use. I use speedlights quite a bit and think it would be a big improvement to switch to monolights. But since I prob would not be using them daily, I don't want to tie up funds in new gear if old will suffice. My only caveat is I have tinnitus and I don't want to have a capacitor blow on me on a shoot:(

[Frank Petronio]

The two dangers are blowing capacitors and plug arcing. It might happen once in twenty years if you use decent quality equipment, it is not common. But a sloppy assistant or your forgetful self may make a mistake or the pack may be defective. Most of the time the only consequence is the loss of the pack but there is potential for harm if you are the one making the mistake when you are close to the pack and the plugs can arc and fly across the room or into your face. Whipping metal electrical connectors will cause damage and you could also be burnt. Otherwise the arcing and the blowing capacitor sounds like a gunshot, so if you can't handle that, don't risk it.

Most of the time it isn't that bad but everyone wants to cover their ass, including me, by erring on the side of caution.

Also, most of the Euro packs, Dynalites, and many other brands are more immune to arcing at the head connectors thanks to the design of their connectors. This greatly reduces the risk and allows the mistake of disconnecting the heads while powered on. I still like the practice of powering down in between changes even with gear that doesn't require that I do.

I don't know what causes blown capacitors, probably rough treatment or defects. If it doesn't blow up early in it's life and in kept in good order, I wouldn't wait around expecting it to blow up, it probably never will.

[rdenney]

I don't know what causes blown capacitors, probably rough treatment or defects. If it doesn't blow up early in it's life and in kept in good order, I wouldn't wait around expecting it to blow up, it probably never will.

The capacitors used are large electrolytic capacitors. They use an applied voltage to form an oxide layer over the surface of a rolled-up sheet of aluminum. The oxide layer acts as a very thin insulator, so you have a large conductor surface area with a very thin insulator separating it from another large conductor surface. The two conductors are rolled up into a cylinder and packaged into a metal can. That large surface area and thin insulator provides a LOT of capacitive reactance with respect to the package size. Capacitors work by charging a conductor on one side of an insulator, and the voltage builds as the pack charges the capacitor (the ready light bleeds a little off, so on these old packs, the ready light acts as an indicator of whether there is a charge on the capacitor--the ready light circuit also bleeds off the charge when you turn off the pack). The capacitor conductors are always wired (through the cables) to the xenon tube in the heads. When the flash is triggered, the capacitor is switched into a transformer that elevates the voltage substantially, and feeds it to a metal flash trigger in the flash head. The large voltage on that metal trigger ionizes the xenon gas in the tube, which makes it conductive, and then the capacitor has a place to dump its whole load. All that happens very quickly, of course.

(In AC circuits, capacitors act as a delay, allowing voltage changes to create charges that cause voltage changes on the other side of the capacitor, but delayed as a result of the capacitive reactance. But here, we just use the capacitor as a high-voltage static-discharge battery.)

So, with a 1600WS power pack (like my Speedotron D1600), the capacitor is big enough to hold 1600 joules, or enough energy to move a pound about 1200 feet if you turned it into kinetic energy.

What makes them fail is that the oxide corrodes away over time when the applied voltage that creates the oxide isn't there. That allows the aluminum sheets to become uninsulated, and charge arcs over across the two conductors in the capacitor. Usually, the arc causes the capacitor case to swell up and sometimes blow out. You can have leakages of voltage where the insulation is weak but not yet sufficient to cause the capacitor to arc. "Reforming" the capacitor is simply applying voltage for a while without building the flash charge so that the oxide layer can be re-established. That's why regular use keeps them in better condition than long periods of non-use. And the most likely defect is that the capacitor will arc as soon as you turn on the power switch on the head after a long period of dormancy.

In the really old days, rolled, high-reactance capacitors were bigger and used wax paper as an insulator. The wax evaporates and the capacitor can short. This can apply to some really old electronic systems like radio transmitters, but I'm not sure any of the flash power packs under discussion are within decades of being old enough to have those ancient wax-paper caps. The caps in my Speedotron pack are standard (but large) aluminum-oxide electrolytics.

I've had a flash capacitor dump into my hand. The flash ended up against the wall on the other end of the room, but it wasn't the arc that move it, it was the involuntary jerk of my hand. That was a speedlight--not in the same league as a jolt from a 1600WS power pack. But a little care with the plugs is all it takes to be safe. Being impaired or spraying liquids around a studio flash power pack: not recommended.

Rick "noting that mil-spec connectors were designed for reliability, not hot-swappability" Denney

[Peter De Smidt]

We were working at a large maker of marine motors a few weeks ago. They closed their photo studio during the down turn, and they have us in to shoot some product photos a few times a year. They have pallets of old gear, some of it going back to the 1950s. For power packs, they have a bunch of Speedotron 4800 packs, which we use for photographing the big outboard motors. I plugged one in the other day, flipped the power switch, and it was like the 4th of July. Those big packs are scary when they go.

[polyglot]

The capacitors used are large electrolytic capacitors. They use an applied voltage to form an oxide layer over the surface of a rolled-up sheet of aluminum. The oxide layer acts as a very thin insulator, so you have a large conductor surface area with a very thin insulator separating it from another large conductor surface. The two conductors are rolled up into a cylinder and packaged into a metal can. That large surface area and thin insulator provides a LOT of capacitive reactance with respect to the package size. Capacitors work by charging a conductor on one side of an insulator, and the voltage builds as the pack charges the capacitor (the ready light bleeds a little off, so on these old packs, the ready light acts as an indicator of whether there is a charge on the capacitor--the ready light circuit also bleeds off the charge when you turn off the pack). The capacitor conductors are always wired (through the cables) to the xenon tube in the heads. When the flash is triggered, the capacitor is switched into a transformer that elevates the voltage substantially, and feeds it to a metal flash trigger in the flash head. The large voltage on that metal trigger ionizes the xenon gas in the tube, which makes it conductive, and then the capacitor has a place to dump its whole load. All that happens very quickly, of course.

(In AC circuits, capacitors act as a delay, allowing voltage changes to create charges that cause voltage changes on the other side of the capacitor, but delayed as a result of the capacitive reactance. But here, we just use the capacitor as a high-voltage static-discharge battery.)

So, with a 1600WS power pack (like my Speedotron D1600), the capacitor is big enough to hold 1600 joules, or enough energy to move a pound about 1200 feet if you turned it into kinetic energy.

What makes them fail is that the oxide corrodes away over time when the applied voltage that creates the oxide isn't there. That allows the aluminum sheets to become uninsulated, and charge arcs over across the two conductors in the capacitor. Usually, the arc causes the capacitor case to swell up and sometimes blow out. You can have leakages of voltage where the insulation is weak but not yet sufficient to cause the capacitor to arc. "Reforming" the capacitor is simply applying voltage for a while without building the flash charge so that the oxide layer can be re-established. That's why regular use keeps them in better condition than long periods of non-use. And the most likely defect is that the capacitor will arc as soon as you turn on the power switch on the head after a long period of dormancy.

In the really old days, rolled, high-reactance capacitors were bigger and used wax paper as an insulator. The wax evaporates and the capacitor can short. This can apply to some really old electronic systems like radio transmitters, but I'm not sure any of the flash power packs under discussion are within decades of being old enough to have those ancient wax-paper caps. The caps in my Speedotron pack are standard (but large) aluminum-oxide electrolytics.

I've had a flash capacitor dump into my hand. The flash ended up against the wall on the other end of the room, but it wasn't the arc that move it, it was the involuntary jerk of my hand. That was a speedlight--not in the same league as a jolt from a 1600WS power pack. But a little care with the plugs is all it takes to be safe. Being impaired or spraying liquids around a studio flash power pack: not recommended.

Rick "noting that mil-spec connectors were designed for reliability, not hot-swappability" Denney

Actually electrolytic capacitors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolytic_capacitor) use a separate (liquid) electrolyte as the energy-storage (via electrical polarisation) media; they do not depend merely on an oxide layer. The reason they're such high capacity because of their size is because of the ionic (full of electric dipoles) nature of the electrolyte.

The usual failure mode is the electrolyte hardening and starting to conduct, which is of course spectacular - all the energy goes into evaporating a bunch of electrolyte in the middle of a capacitor, which (tightly rolled) goes off like a firecracker.

The other failure mode is the "bulging capacitor", where electrolyte starts expanding; it's usually due to the capacitor being underrated for its load current, i.e. manufacturer was too cheap. A lot of motherboards died like this about a decade ago and one of my friends' chinese flashes went that way too. Usually they either just split and spew slightly-toxic smoking goo all over your equipment though there is a small fire risk.

It's worth noting that a few tens of Joules across your body can stop your heart. 1600J can literally explode chunks (via evaporation) out of your body on contact, so don't even think about opening a pack.

Rick's point about the mil-spec connectors is important; the pins must be completely inserted before you screw down the locknut.

[alanbutler57]

I've always had good luck with used Photogenic equipment. But, as Frank said very early in the thread, don't overlook tungsten. Only recently did I buy some inexpensive Fresnel spots at ebay, and enjoy them far more than strobes when I get the chance to shoot. For added overall intensity, I've found that using both neutral density and CTO gels on a large strobed softbox gives a nice "boost" to the spots. I confess I've only used them with digital so far, but hope to limber up some medium and large format film gear with them soon.