sungphoto
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 p.1 #4 · What are your thoughts on this? | |
Thern wrote:
Thanks Sung for your input, appreciate it very much! especially coming from you.
I don't want to start small and cheap, my own experience is that this is (most of the time) the most expensive route and it can be frustrating too.
Glad you confirm Broncolor to be solid stuff, but you state pros αnd cons.
Can you please point out those cons? Can you name another quality setup, which would be better in every respect?
Regarding ceilingheight you confirmed the feedback I got of some of my studio photog friends. (two of them are allso pro shooters using studios) but I allways like to gather all the knowledge I can get 
For the studio I think I will have it built next to the house, room enough and no restriction regarding height, but I will have to deal with my better half then as she is the floormanager 
Thanks for your time and efforts!
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Ha thanks - I have no personal experience using Broncolor strobes just to be clear. Most of my experience is with Godox and Profoto. All the systems have various pros and cons that are somewhat subjective based on the type of work you do, how much revenue you are realistically expecting to make, also ease of repair/service is dependent on how close your local service centers are, so I can't really recommend a system that is better in every respect for you.
That said, personally I was primarily deciding between elinchrom, godox and profoto strobes before I settled on Profoto. Broncolor was out for me because their smallest monolight is the siros, and the move pack and head kit though very nice is pretty big and not travel friendly (I travel about 3 months on average out of the year, most of the time flying with my lighting kit), and it doesn't have integration with speedlites like profoto and godox. Profoto is overall great in terms of TTL accuracy when running and gunning, has a wide range of strobes from small to large, are built incredibly well (one of my B1s fell from about 12 ft reflector side down, and after replacing the bulb and frosted glass, it worked perfectly), have a great service network in the US, has the easiest to use menu system, however on the con side the Air TTL triggers eat batteries (I go through at least one battery swap in an 8-10 hour day, and alkalines are recommended) and don't have two way communication with the strobes unlike the godox triggers (ie you can't see the power setting on the profoto trigger), they're comparably priced with broncolor but significantly more expensive than godox. I wish that profoto had a comparable strobe to the godox ad600 pro, as in terms of power and flexibility alone, the ad600 pro is better than say comparable strobes like the profoto b1, b10 plus, b1x. Profoto does allow you to zoom the position of the head in the modifier, which is something that its competitors can't do, but that personally was not why I chose it. I've noticed the profoto strobes tend to have less misfires and are more color consistent on torture test long day sessions where I'm popping it upwards of 3-4k times over an 8 hour period. I've read the new R2 pro triggers for godox are actually worse from a misfire standpoint compared to the previous x-pro trigger. Elinchrom has some excellent pack and head units, and their hypersync tech is a selling point for some that routinely push past standard flash x speed, but there are also pros/cons of HSS and Hypersync. Didn't like the trigger on the elinchrom though and it has less functionality compared to profoto and godox triggers, and they don't have smaller monolights or integration with speedlites. They're built very well though, and elinchrom makes in my opinion some of the best octas out there. Godox has an amazing breadth of strobes, from speedlites, to the ad200, to the ad600, the latter of which can be chained together into a 1200 ws strobe, has two way communication on the trigger, is incredibly well priced relative to its competitors, and uses the ubiquitous bowens mount which in my opinion is the easiest and most secure modifier mount. That said, you pretty much just buy a new one if they fail - I've had a couple strobe and accessory failures under warranty and they basically just sent me a new one and told me to throw away the malfunctioning one. I've experienced more misfires with godox compared to profoto, but I do a lot of high volume work which is a bit of an edge case scenario for a lot of photographers (I often do corporate headshot gigs where I photograph upwards of 200-400+ a day, so flash misfires make a noticeable impact on my workflow).
Sorry for the jumbled brain dump - but hopefully that gives you an idea of the subjectivity of strobe system choice. I'd just think about what type of strobe is your go-to for 90% of your work. When I first started using strobes, I primarily used 500-600 ws strobes and didn't fly much with them, however nowadays most of the work I fly to I'm ok with bringing my smaller 250 ws strobes like the B2 and B10, however I also need more power for larger shoots which is why I actually sold of my B1s and got a couple D2 1000s. I'm sure next year I'll switch things up again, which is why I'd still recommend you start smaller and build as you get to know your workflow and modifier preferences better. It'd suck to buy $10k in strobes and then realize that a specific lighting modifier isn't available for it, or that you hate the trigger.
I'd recommend renting before buying honestly - if you have friends with nicely fleshed out profoto, elinchrom, godox etc kits I'd just ask to borrow them for a bit to see how you like them.
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