These look to be good units. I'm glad PCB is working to make heavier duty more professional units.
My one question is will there be speed rings to utilize other manufactures soft boxes?
Since I already have a large collection of Chimera units for still and video. Any new lighting system for me would need to work with my current set of soft boxes.
Galbraith and I have both now been sent a second set of test shots to look at, this one involving color consistancy at various power levels at flash durations. This makes me think that what Paul Buff is up to at this point is tweaking firmware settings.
ehor wrote:
It is New Years you know. Maybe Paul is on a break
Paul spent all of Christmas weekend and all of New Years weekend testing and evaluating pre production Einsteins. Unfortunately, I lost both weekends to minor failures, both caused by assembly mistakes of the protos. For the technically minded, one was a TO220 package with a mis-positioned insulating washer and one cause by a tiny solder bridge. Anyone who has dealt with surface mount parts knows that hand soldering these tiny parts is very difficult and can lead to these things. Production board parts are installed by robots and they never make mistakes.
This caused us about two weeks of delay before we can confidently issue an absolute release date. We had pegged release at Jan 18 but these delays have moved our best estimate at the end of January. We plan to post pre-order info by this Thursday
In testing "wounded" units I achieved enough info to thoroughly evaluate performance and take test shots including spinning wheel action stopping shots and color/t.1 times at all power settings. Gathering this data is very time consuming and requires extreme technical expertise - since commercial color meters are typically non linear by up to 400°K. So all color temperature measurements are obtained by actual RAW shots and determination of real color temperature in Adobe Bridge. t.1 times are exceeding accurate and are obtained by true RMS integration of the actual light emitted.
Below is an excerpt of information I submitted to Rob Galbraith, Ellis Vener and David Hobby. The photos are not posted here but will be online later this week.
Rob, Ellis and David,
Here are two Einstein 640 sample shots both, in Color Mode, unadjusted and shot at 5600K - 0 CC. (I have to tweak out the 100°K difference and get them within 50° specified.)
Full Power shot measures 5450°K - 3 CC and has a t.1 duration of 1/540.
1/256 power measures 5550°K and has 1/9000 Second t.1.
A sampling ofColor Mode t.1 times. color is constant within 100°F
I will probably limit the Action Mode duration to 1/10,000 Second t.1 to limit the color temperature shift to 550°K. The Action chart is not as refined as the Color Mode but the numbers are quite accurate.
Note, absolute measured color depends on the finish of the reflector. The reflector used is rather dull and is about 150° warmer than highly reflective ones.
Color temps were derived from actual shots in RAW (D300 and X Rite). Neither Minolta nor Gossen color meters are as accurately as RAW.
A quick question about these lights. At full power they are listed as having 1.7 second recycle. That really is great. I also read that recycle time is reduced "proportional to reduction in power." So, if I shoot one of these things at half power, would it then recycle at just under 1 second? If so, that would be seriously cool enough to instantly make me interested in having a pair to supplement my x5 X3200 units.
Second question is I already have a box full of CSRB triggers. What will the $30 CyberSync module trigger deal do for me that the CSRB hooked to trigger jack won't do? (I don't plan on getting into the CyberCommander at this time.)
Paul Buff wrote:
I will probably limit the Action Mode duration to 1/10,000 Second t.1 to limit the color temperature shift to 550°K. The Action chart is not as refined as the Color Mode but the numbers are quite accurate.
Maybe consider letting the action mode go as brief as possible regardless of the color shift? After all you can get 1/9000 in a low powered "color" mode if needed. And if you are shooting in this mode to freeze action, there probably won't be an issue with ambient light, so one could just white balance in Raw. Not that it is a big deal either way.
Kent, from my reading of the various threads, the CSRB on an E will provide triggering.
The plug-in module provides all the connections to control power, etc.
Without the CC the additional control afforded by the module is unavailable.
Two23 wrote:
A quick question about these lights. At full power they are listed as having 1.7 second recycle. That really is great. I also read that recycle time is reduced "proportional to reduction in power." So, if I shoot one of these things at half power, would it then recycle at just under 1 second? If so, that would be seriously cool enough to instantly make me interested in having a pair to supplement my x5 X3200 units.
Second question is I already have a box full of CSRB triggers. What will the $30 CyberSync module trigger deal do for me that the CSRB hooked to trigger jack won't do? (I don't plan on getting into the CyberCommander at this time.)
You have to have the Transceiver to control power, etc. If you're not getting CC the CSRB will trigger just like on AB. I don't have the exact recycle time VS power but, yes, at hal fow the should be below 1 second.
Now wait a couple or three weeks for info on focusable super long throw reflectors we have in the works. No more info until I test the first samples.
Alan Goldstein wrote:
Maybe consider letting the action mode go as brief as possible regardless of the color shift? After all you can get 1/9000 in a low powered "color" mode if needed. And if you are shooting in this mode to freeze action, there probably won't be an issue with ambient light, so one could just white balance in Raw. Not that it is a big deal either way.
This is a judgement call. The 1/13,000 t.1 comes at a cost of large color shift and possibly less consistency than 1/10,000. I will post some spinning wheel action stopping shot soon. Even at at 1/7000 it freezes like ice. That's equivalent to about 1/22.000 t.5.
Paul Buff wrote:
Couldn't go on holiday anyhow - sicker than a dog from flu on top of the urgency to get Einstein our ASAP. AU will get stock very soon after release.
Look forward to them hitting our shores, will have to hitup Colin for a price
We are still waiting. No word from Luap C. Ffub in a while either.