With cameras now capturing 5-10FPS on a regular basis, what kind of studio flash set up do you need to be able to keep up with them? I've got a 580EX I and a 580EX II. Though the II is much faster, neither really do the job and the AA batteries come out smoking hot.
I also recently purchased my first AB800. I'm not fully familiar with it yet, but it looks like the recycle time isn't going to allow it to keep up either.
In studio shots of kids, where the variation of expression or position over the course of a second is amazing, is my primary reason for asking. Thanks for your thoughts.
To get the really fast recycling times, you need to lower the flash output dramatically. Several lights, wide apertures, high ISO settings...the full gamut of tools needs to be put to use.
Continuous lighting is easier, but has its own unique difficulties: heat and power draw.
Here's a lik showing studio strobes being used for 10FPS capture:
The cheapest you'll find is the AB400, which can keep up with 5fps bursts a couple knotches above minimum power just as well as my Profoto Acute2 1200 and Dynalites.
ishootsports3 wrote:
a few systems exist that can keep up, i think broncolor also has a system that equals or surpasses the 8a's
when i shoot speed lights in the woods i get about 4 fps
Chase Jarvis recently had a video Podcast using these... skiing series. I believe he was hitting 8FPS. Top dollar equipment though, I assume. I'm going to see what I can find out about it, but I assume it is out of range. Will report back.
bacilonur wrote:
The cheapest you'll find is the AB400, which can keep up with 5fps bursts a couple knotches above minimum power just as well as my Profoto Acute2 1200 and Dynalites.
I'm firing an AB800, with another on order. Maybe I'll play around with them this weekend to see what I can get at low power. I was at Profoto's site recently on a search for high FPS flash photography... I'm trying to remember why. Some band made an "all photograph" video... kind of like stop motion at 8FPS. The flashes were keeping up, and if memory serves me correctly, they were Profotos. Air??
Yes, that was with a couple Pro-8a packs at $10k apiece. Bron's Grafit and Scoro look downright affordable by comparison and actually recycle faster and will put out more power at 8-10FPS. If you've got $6k-$10k to spend, go ahead. But you can do the same thing with a couple B400's and a few PW Multimax units if you really want 8FPS.
I believe people will also gang up redundant strobes in side-by-side positions or use bi-tube heads driven by multiple packs, then devices like PocketWizard MultiMaxes that allow you to cycle through output channels with each pop. Rather than getting one light that can cycle faster you cycle through more lights.
bacilonur mentioned the multimax units above, shatterkiss. I wasn't aware of them. I'm reading up on them now. Looks do-able... question is how many lights will you need per channel / zone to be able to accomplish what you want. If you're running a 4 light set up, each zone is over $1,000 in AB800's, plus the PW. This solution could cost a bundle too, but it certainly is interesting. Thank you both for mentioning them.
Honestly, I still haven't seen a compelling reason for doing it in the first place.
Have you really considered what a kid's experience of having you strobe a 4-light setup at 5-8fps at them is going to be like? You might catch every nuance of their changing expression, but that expression is going to be changing from intimidation to terror.
But I wouldn't be doing it with a bunch of AB400's anyway...I'd use either Dynalite or Speedotron bi-tube heads and the cheapest 500ws packs I could find. Recycling at that kind of duty I'd be looking for everything to be fan-cooled and I wouldn't want to be doubling up on modifiers, since it sounds like you're going to be working with umbrellas and softboxes.
I think that most people's applications of this kind of system are for sports and action work, where you're hanging arrays of lights anyway and using bare reflectors.
Simon, I certainly see your point about this being overkill. I was curious what was needed to accomplish studio flash that can keep up with cameras. Now that I know, I'm pretty confident it isn't a direction I can go at this time. Not sure that I want to later, either! Thanks for the feedback.
The Speedtron 1205 can also keep up at lower power settings. My old Blackline 812 packs recycle a full 800ws in .6 seconds and keep up perfectly at 100ws 5fps. I do have a 1DII, so I can try some faster shots
shatterkiss wrote:
I believe people will also gang up redundant strobes in side-by-side positions or use bi-tube heads driven by multiple packs, then devices like PocketWizard MultiMaxes that allow you to cycle through output channels with each pop. Rather than getting one light that can cycle faster you cycle through more lights.
i've gone with the multimax / multiple strobes where It switches chanels for each shot, and works through 4 chanels (A,B,C and D) with 4 lights (only ever rigged that up once), it would fire for the first 8 frames if your at 1/4 power or less at 8fps, but I dont know who I terrified more, the cyclists or myself! After a few curse and bikes almost missing me, I went back to single shot pretty quickly!
Way easier to back off on the fps - on the canon 1 series you can set the fps to something more realistic.
