My Compact profotos Have been the WORST lights I have EVER owned.
Hopefully the newer ones will have been totally rethought.
Have 2 600s and 1 300 just collecting dust b/c I was sick of repairing them every couple of months.
They would just die when shooting fast..
Let some rental houses test them out first...:+}
The remote controlling is a BIG selling point and will be my next purchase. Then I can just get rid of my assistant..:+]
Just kdding, could not live with out him...
Snook
The biggest plus to a built-in reflector is hopefully it'll save you some dough in the long run once you've dropped a few heads and have a slightly banged up front end instead of broken bulbs and glass covers each time. Michael mentioned the Picolite heads a while back, he said they weren't too bad in a softbox IIRC.
bacilonur wrote:
Michael mentioned the Picolite heads a while back, he said they weren't too bad in a softbox IIRC.
I have a bunch of Picolites, they are great heads. Very small and light, about the size of a can of soda. Great for hair, accent, etc.
But I also use them anywhere that I use a regular head, except the largest modifiers - like the Photoflex 7' Octo. They are they same heads that I also use with my portable Broncolor Mobil and Visatec Litepac kits.
But the Picolites have a 120 degree or a 130 degree spread (on the newest version.) That is as wide as Bron's widest modifier.
If I remember correctly the D1's have a 77 degree spread?
It would be interesting to see what kind of spread they claim with the matte covering dome. I don't think the dome will suck up too much light, but not sure how much they will help the spread?
FWIW, I still intend to try to fit the Profoto modifiers to the Litepac LP1 heads - just like the Picolite - some day. The Litepac is a 600 Ws unit portable battery unit with 2 head outlets, weighs about 12 pounds. They have been selling lately for $800 or so.
At this site: http://blog.profoto-usa.com/?tag=profoto-air there's a photographer who shows that the Pro-8 packs work using both the Profoto Air and Pocket Wizards. Additionally, there are some photos at the bottom that show some reflectors attached to the D1's.
In the Profoto videos (Tony Corbell and Profoto D1 Monoblocs) you can see him using a Beauty Dish and a gridded reflector, as well.
Deezie wrote:
At this site: http://blog.profoto-usa.com/?tag=profoto-air there's a photographer who shows that the Pro-8 packs work using both the Profoto Air and Pocket Wizards.
Thanks for that. I see he's using his Sekonic meter because he's attached a pocketwizard to the powerpack. (That would be less than ideal with a monolight. Plus you have to have an "extra" pocketwizard.)
Just stopped by Samy's in Hollywood again to hook up a D1 500 to my Vagabond II. It works, albiet at a slower recharge rate. The recharge rate goes up exponentially with near max strobe power. At 8 power, it recharges under a second. 9 it takes 2 seconds. 10 power takes almost a full 3 seconds to recharge. Not sure why that is, considering this was the 500 w/s unit? Anything under 8 and the recharge is almost instant. Just curious about the 1000 w/s unit with the Vagabond, but they didn't have one to play with. The guy I spoke to didn't have the frosted glass dome so I couldn't play with one (he didn't even know about it). One thing I do know, you don't put the dome over the flat frosted glass already in place. You remove that and then put the dome on, so I wouldn't think the light loss would be much if anything (unless the glass itself on the dome is very thick?). The salesman seemed to think the Profoto battery for this unit would be around $1300 with one outlet. Not exactly a cheap setup with 4 strobes w/ 4 batteries.
I was also at Samys today and checked out the D1. Not a bad light. Still, it's a little long in size, I wish that they had found a way to make it more compact. I couldn't find a socket for the synch cord. If it's there, it well hidden. I hope it's just my bad eyesight.
cineski wrote:
There's also an "Optional Glass Cover" for more spread (#13).
I see the image of this "optional glass cover" in the PDF, but does anyone happen to know the product number? I just have a feeling that if I call a dealer and ask "do you have the optional glass cover" they won't have any idea what I'm talking about.
I'm not sure what you guys are seeing in the D1 that makes you think they are such a good light other than the Profoto branding!
How on earth you can consider a product to be so fantastic when the dealer network and Profoto themselves can't answer some simple but very important questions about the design of the light is beyond me. I for one don't consider any product an option that requires the purchase and attachment of additional lenses/diffusers to enable it to work sucsessfully with some of the most widely used and basic of light modifiers available.
From experience, I could put money on these lens/diffusers will be the things that drop off the light or get smashed on location potentially causing difficulty on already stressful shoots.
Really for the money its just unbelievable and there are much better designed lights on the market than these things.
It is a little perplexing how a company like Profoto can get one product completely right (their packs), and a very similar product, like their monoblocs, so completely wrong! A 77-degree built-in reflector? WTF??
Putting aside for the moment the issue of the 77 degree spread with the built-in reflector, could someone suggest the advantages of a Profoto powerpack with heads versus the D1 monolights? I don't mean monolights v. packs generally, I'm already familiar with that debate. I'm considering selling my D4 2400R pack and its two heads, keeping all my Profoto modifiers, and replacing the D4 pack with a D1 500 Air monolight system (two or three monolights). I figure that with Air monolights, I'd get both the primary benefit of a pack (the ability to control the lights from a central location rather than by each individual head) and the convenience of monolights (overall lighter weight and portability, ability to use with something like a Vagabond, easier to position in different ways (because I can use extension cords on the monolights rather than the very expensive profoto head extension cables), etc. The recycling time on the D1s may not be as good as on the D4 powerpack, but at less than 1 second to recycle at full power, it's fine for how I'd be using them (portraits and fashion shooting). Overall power isn't really an issue for me -- with my D4 pack, I almost always have the power turned all the way down given where I position th beauty dish and softbox (fairly close to the subject). In fact, even turned all the way down, I still sometimes can't get open to an aperture wider than f8. I'd sometimes like to get a really wide aperture with strobe shooting.
So: what would I be giving up by switching to the D500 Air monolights?
I have been using Elinchrom's RX system, including both packs and monolights, for a number of years. I can confirm what you already suspect; there are some distinct advantages to extending the scalability of your system by incorporating monolights into it. This is especially true if all your lights, packs or monolights, can be controlled from the camera or hand held transmitter. The new Air system looks very similar to the Skyport RX, which delivers very nicely on this functionality. However I'm not sure if the D4 2400R has Air capability. If Air could be incorporated into your current system, I wouldn't hesitate to add a D1 500 Air. If not, then you may have to rethink. It would certainly be a pity if you couldn't.
I think a lot of PF folks are going to wish they had Air instead of PW once they realize how well this functionality works and how nicely it can integrate auxillary monolights into their current state of the art pack systems.
I certainly was one to poo poo it all until I got my first taste.
Good luck.
Warning to all PF users:
If you can't or don't want to upgrade your entire systems, DO NOT use, demo or rent the Air system and repeat after me..... I love my PW's, they've never let me down; I love my PW's, and they trigger my meter too; I love my PW's, but I have so much invested in them, I love my PW's.......really I do.
You must verify that the lenght of the light (what is the term for french "eclair" ?), the duration of the light, is not too long. Because you will have some problems of "move" on the picture.
I have this problem with my Acute B600/R when I use it as main light. Il I Use my ProB2/R, I don't have this problem.
Maybe you have ths problem with you D4...
I want to buy a Pro8a for frontal and main light. And to do secondary lights with D1.
If you want to see pictures of what I am talking about, I can post some.
The D4 is not Air capable, but direct D4/D1 comparison is tricky. The D4 has a USB port and is designed for studio-wide control from a PC (console software included). A laptop and wireless USB hardware (from third parties) should outmatch Air - with a cost and weight penalty, of course.
