Im not up to speed on all lighting gear, but have heard lots of excitement in the air about the Einsteins, can someone tell me what all the fuss is all about, what it can do that say Elinchrom cant ect, just curious.
I think the price/quality ratio is pretty good with PCB gear (I used to use White Lightning) because they sell direct, they also have good customer service.
The Image wrote:
Im not up to speed on all lighting gear, but have heard lots of excitement in the air about the Einsteins, can someone tell me what all the fuss is all about,
The fuss is mainly that Buff is finally delivering a digitally controlled monolight to their faithful following. Paul has not only promoted cost/performance value but innovation as well in his products over the years. Until Einstein, his products were getting very long in the tooth.
what it can do that say Elinchrom cant ect, just curious.
Paul, never the one to offer a "me too" product, has included proprietary IGBT (thyristor) technology in a monolight. IGBT maintains fast flash durations, yields Einstein an impressive 9 stop range and short recycle times. All things being equal, this feature alone could allow King Luap to keep his crown.
These are fairly impressive specs for a light at this price point. I like the small, portable footprint. We won't know until some reviewers impressions come out, but it would appear that Paul has come out with a nice addition to his existing line of lights.
"A question that comes to my mind is why so comparatively little hoopla about the Zeus. When paired with the Vagabond that's some serious firepower."
I've found out why it's not all about the strobe. While I love my Elinchrom RX's and the Skyport, what I really love are Elinchrom's light modifiers. I believe that AB is rightly known and appreciated for an inexpensive general purpose monolight for the masses. Just my marketing guess but I think that Zeus was aimed at getting some of the pro pack and head market which is already dominated by so many others. Others who have a much more extensive modifier system, rental system, etc. Now if the Einstein is what it's supposed to be, that's a different story.
The main attraction of the Einstein, to me, is not the lights themselves but the ability to control them with the Cyber Commander. - That thing is just amazing.
I'd prefer to have flash heads, and a one-pack per head system, so I'm still considering Elinchrom Ranger / Quadra, but the Skyport isn't quite a Cyber Commander.
The Einsteins are reasonably small, and cheap enough that you could seriously consider a separate Vagabond for each light. Hopefully, Paul will come out with a 1,000 - 1,200 watt version soon, for those needing a strong keylight outdoors.
Also, hopefully, the Buff modifiers will continue to increase in quality & variety.
Gregg Heckler wrote:
"A question that comes to my mind is why so comparatively little hoopla about the Zeus. When paired with the Vagabond that's some serious firepower."
I've found out why it's not all about the strobe. While I love my Elinchrom RX's and the Skyport, what I really love are Elinchrom's light modifiers. I believe that AB is rightly known and appreciated for an inexpensive general purpose monolight for the masses. Just my marketing guess but I think that Zeus was aimed at getting some of the pro pack and head market which is already dominated by so many others. Others who have a much more extensive modifier system, rental system, etc. Now if the Einstein is what it's supposed to be, that's a different story....Show more →
We did Zeus because of all the talk on forums about pack and head systems. The Zeus 1250 cycles in 1 second, 2400WS in 2 seconds. That about half the recycle per WS than D1, 1/4 the recycle per WS than RX600 and it runs Dynalite heads if you like. This answered my questions about pack and head systems. At $595 for a 1250WS pack and $795 for 2500WS pack the whole Zeus thing proves what I thought all along . . . pack and head systems don't have anywhere near the demand that monolights do. They sell to the 2% and monolights sell to the 98%. I feel sorry for Dynalite - good company but probably 1/20 the sales dollars and volume of AB. If I'm wrong, I'm happy for them.
Gregg Heckler wrote:
what I really love are Elinchrom's light modifiers.
FYI, you can mount Elinchrom modifiers (including the el-octa and DO) on AB/WL/Zeus/Balcar mount w/ Kacey's adapters...that was a big reason for me staying w/ AB gear instead of adding more Speedo gear...
I have been thinking more on this, looking again at the Elinchrom systems.
I am very close to pulling the trigger on a Buff system. It all comes down to the fact that I don't want to run cables all over the place (isn't that why we use batteries in the first place? Elinchrom packs are just too bloody expensive to consider 1-per-head.
A Ranger kit with 1 head & 1 pack, cables, and reflector is about $1500. For another $100, you can buy two Einsteins with reflectors & two Vagabonds. That alone answers the OP's question.
If I had to adjust the monolights at the light, like in the bad old days, I'd be sold on heads, but with the CyberCommander I won't have to mess touch the Einsteins after they are set. That's a big thing for me.
I don't care about maximum recycling, so that's not a factor.
I might make my own, smaller battery packs (sorry, Paul) so that will make the kit even more compact, AND less expensive.
As noted above, you CAN use Elinchrom modifiers with Buff lights.
And last, I get to use the CyberCommander. This is starting to sound like a no-brainer.
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So Paul, if you are reading this, you "need" to come out with three new products:
1: A smaller Vagabond, with enough juice for ONE light. - And please make it black.
2: A more powerful version of the Einstein, with identical ergonomics/controls. (I assume this is already in the works)
3: A SPEEDLIGHT that can be controlled by the CyberCommander. !!!
- If it also has ETTL and HSS, that would be a gift from the gods, but even a manual-only flash would be amazing, as long as it could be intergrated into the Buff/Cybercommander system. This would literally take-over the event photography world. I am certain it would also INCREASE Einstein sales, not compete with them.
Cableaddict wrote:
1: A smaller Vagabond, with enough juice for ONE light. - And please make it black.
This is already available, just not from Paul.
2: A more powerful version of the Einstein, with identical ergonomics/controls. (I assume this is already in the works)
Not gonna happen in the near future. This would require a completely different body mold, similar to an AB1600 vs X3200. And if you've ever owned an X3200, you'd know why that's a bad thing. One word: Monstrosity. And terrible flash duration (physics, not Paul's fault).
3: A SPEEDLIGHT that can be controlled by the CyberCommander. !!!
Again, not gonna happen. A third party manufacturer could conceivably come up with an adapter that accepts an RJ-11 and allows adjustment down to 1/32 via the squelch pin. Radiopopper is in the best position to offer something like this.
You can't judge sales performance of the Zeus based on demand because the Zeus was a botched design from a professional point of view, and only professionals generally need 1200 and 2400 w/seconds. The Einstein seems like an amazing product. I just hope you don't discount future pack and head designs w/ the Einstein system based on what happened with the Zeus. A 2400 w/s Einstein pack and head with design elements that pros would actually find useful would sell.
Paul Buff wrote:
We did Zeus because of all the talk on forums about pack and head systems. The Zeus 1250 cycles in 1 second, 2400WS in 2 seconds. That about half the recycle per WS than D1, 1/4 the recycle per WS than RX600 and it runs Dynalite heads if you like. This answered my questions about pack and head systems. At $595 for a 1250WS pack and $795 for 2500WS pack the whole Zeus thing proves what I thought all along . . . pack and head systems don't have anywhere near the demand that monolights do. They sell to the 2% and monolights sell to the 98%. I feel sorry for Dynalite - good company but probably 1/20 the sales dollars and volume of AB. If I'm wrong, I'm happy for them. ...Show more →
My guess is part of the problem is only 2 heads instead of 3 can be used on one pack. Also crappy slider for controlling power. Not very sophisticated unit overall...but I'm sure it has some advantages too...
two heads from a pack was never a limitation for me. It limiting the number of heads feeding from a pack was a limitation every professional pack in the world would look like a Speedotron Blackline or Norman P200D from 20 years ago with at least 6 ports per pack.
That "crummy slider control" works better than the switches you see on other packs, even once you throw in a variator on those packs that controlled the total output of the pack, and it beats packs like the Acute 2 series where the variator only works in discrete fractions.
The only things I'm not wild about on the Zeus is that the two outlets could only be in one of two fixed ratios to each other 1:1 or 1:4 and the noise of the cooling fan. For awhile I worried that because the pack was so relatively tall compared to it's narrow footprint it might get pulled over -- but that has just never occurred.
I'd prefer to have flash heads, and a one-pack per head system, so I'm still considering Elinchrom Ranger / Quadra, but the Skyport isn't quite a Cyber Commander.
