It's been a while, I used to use a generator....
What is the current best practice? you know, throwing money at it....
And what is the best down and dirty ghetto method? you know, like cheap and flammable....
It's been a while, I used to use a generator....
What is the current best practice? you know, throwing money at it....
And what is the best down and dirty ghetto method? you know, like cheap and flammable....
Make sure that the flash units can work on square wave that some car 110V adapters put out. Had one studio that bought several Broncolor Monopacks from us several years ago to outfit vans to do kidnapping photos (infant at home shots via hospital contracts and diaper services). They could only get a dozen or so shots before the flash units blew up as they couldn't handle the square wave output. These were strobes made for line voltage only so check with the manufacturer before you get a surprise.
Hmm I wonder about old Dynalites?
See what Paul Buff has to say about the Alien Bees Vagabond II portable power thingy.
My ancient (c.1990) Jon Falk book "Adventures in Location Lighting" suggests an LTM or Vanner inverter, or a Power-Mite 110 generator, attached to your car's engine. Dyna-lites are/were his brand of choice, altough even then they were M-series, not the older D-series.
Down'n'dirty... lighting your models with the car headlights?
Dunno where this fits in your scheme, but I've rented the ProFoto battery powered strobes (Pro 7b i think) with two heads. Rated at 250x 1200Ws pops per battery, which is easily replaceable. Looks like there is a charger that works off of 12V power too.
-Darren
I take it the little $39 Radio Shack Inverters shudder and melt?
I use a Tronix Explorer XT and it works great with my Elinchrom heads (600S and 1200S)... I think it's a real bargain at $350 - http://innovatronix.com/prodindex.asp
We have a Dyna-lite battery system that powers their 110v standard location packs. Basically, it takes batteries that look like very small car batteries. We have three of the batteries, and one of the charger/voltage converter modules.
We also just ordered some dynalite monolights with come with their "jack rabbit" batteries, but they haven't arrived yet.
If you want to run off a standard 12 volt converter, I'd stick to the old fashioned type of strobes like Dynalite, Speedo... and avoid ones with fancy electronics. I doubt that Broncolors are square wave friendly.
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