ordered the vagabond last night. Trying to decide on a photogenic pl1250, WL 1600 or AB1600 to compliment for shooting outdoors to match ambient and flash
jzucker wrote:
ordered the vagabond last night. Trying to decide on a photogenic pl1250, WL 1600 or AB1600 to compliment for shooting outdoors to match ambient and flash
If it's outdoors only, I'd get an inexpensive B1600 and be done with it. You'll drop stuff outdoors and wreck stuff...cheap flash tubes, cheap repairs. Smaller size than either of the others and the PL1250 is only 500WS (you really want about 1000WS if you use a softbox outdoors in midday sun so you can go 1 stop over ambient if you want).
kenyee wrote:
If it's outdoors only, I'd get an inexpensive B1600 and be done with it. (you really want about 1000WS if you use a softbox outdoors in midday sun so you can go 1 stop over ambient if you want).
Okay, you need a hand cart to move this boat anchor onsite, but you can toss the stands, heads, packs and b/g on board, too (almost half the weight is the SLA battery). It will operate any modern studio pack with ease, including a couple of real 250W modeling lights. Based on the discharge curve, this UPS will support 1500 full discharges @ 1200J (modeling lights off ). For much more time off the mains, you can daisy-chain external battery packs but weight becomes a factor (UXABP48 weighs 280 lbs).
^ Pretty sure you're tongue-in-cheek, but if not, a Honda EI series generator would make infinitely more sense.
The VML's are fantastic. Cheap, small, lightweight, charge holds for a long time. I've jumped a car with the battery in one and turn my daughters' wagon into mobile lighted holiday magic at Christmastime...who could ask for more?
jdben622 wrote:
Pretty sure you're tongue-in-cheek, but if not, a Honda EI series generator would make infinitely more sense.
Only partly joking. I've used various combinations of Smart-UPS and external packs to run the machine room at my office. Not all locations are amenable to internal combustion.
This evening, I successfully operated a Profoto D4 pack on an APC Smart-UPS of 700 VA capacity. No smoke was detected. Utilization of this UPS by the pack was about 90% - a bit tight. The D4 has a current-limiting circuit which I set on the slower setting. I also performed instrumentation as shown in the power curve below. While my sampling interval was a mere 0.1s, I don't sense any hint of current rush beyond that measured by the peaks.
Event legend: (1) Base power utilization by other equipment; (2) D4 is connected, but off; (3) D4 is turned on with one channel at energy setting "7"; (4) discharge/recharge at this setting; (5) energy dialed to "8"; (6) energy dialed to "9"; (7) energy dialed to "10"; (8) discharge/recharge at this setting.
Based on this test, I can confidently recommend the Smart-UPS 1500 VA models: they only weigh about 50 lbs.
