Beni wrote:
Interesting that the AB site doesn't show the new 50" though I have to admit I'd still prefer the smaller 42" for speedlight use and portability.
Well, none of the new ones are available for sale yet. Though, I wouldn't mind the option to pre-order them so I can be towards the front of the line.
I mostly do location shooting, and even though my Elinchrom Deep Octa is quick to set up, the 65" PLM is much, much faster to take up and down.
^ True, as long as you don't use the front fabric. You can close the Deep Octa whle still mounted to the strobe- for easy transport though doorways etc.
The PLM fabric just falls off when you close it, meaning you have to start again each time you open it up.
bartcox wrote:
I love my PLM64, just wish the diffuser fabric fit right... I bought my PLM after I saw Jeremy's drummer / drum kit photo examples and discussion early on, so I guess that puts me behind him somewhere in the line...
08/13/2010:We are pleased to announce that PLM™v.2 parts are beginning to arrive from our vendors! We will be performing our final quality control checks and assembling the umbrellas for shipment as quickly as we can. As the umbrellas have been on backorder for an extended period of time, we will begin by filling backorders in the order in which they were originally placed. If you have already placed an order, we will be sending you an e-mail over the next couple of weeks to verify your order.
If you wish to place a NEW order for a PLM™v.2, please note that all 64-inch and 86-inch umbrellas will remain on backorder until all previous orders are filled. We hope to have all backorders filled in order to begin shipment of new orders in late September – early October. We cannot guarantee this timeframe, but we are getting the parts and will continue shipping as quickly as we can....Show more →
Yeah, that has been posted for a week now, but it still has that "4-8 weeks away" feel to it. It even says, "We hope to have all backorders filled in order to begin shipment of new orders in late September – early October."
I don't know. It's always 4-8 weeks or 6 weeks away just like other things. I've given up and will only buy one once it's actually for sale. I'm never making a pre-order again.
Seanzky wrote:
I don't know. It's always 4-8 weeks or 6 weeks away just like other things. I've given up and will only buy one once it's actually for sale. I'm never making a pre-order again.
Why wait and not pre-order? It's not as if they charge you before it ships. You can always cancel your order if you decide to get something else.
hobbit wrote:
Why wait and not pre-order? It's not as if they charge you before it ships. You can always cancel your order if you decide to get something else.
Only because I don't keep hoping for something that might never come. There's already a long list of pre-orders anyway. It wouldn't make a difference for me to join that queue or just wait until it clears out.
Seanzky wrote:
..
Only because I don't keep hoping for something that might never come. There's already a long list of pre-orders anyway. It wouldn't make a difference for me to join that queue or just wait until it clears out.
I ordered a pair of PLMs back in June of '09, Sean, along with my pre-order for a pair of Einsteins. I requested that the PLMs be shipped at the same time as the Einsteins. My crystal ball had failed to warn me that the lights wouldn't be ready to ship until April of the following year; fully 10 months after the order was first placed. Of course, by that time, the V1 PLMs were long gone and my order was converted to a V2 order. I'm still waiting. It has been almost 14 months since I first hit the <enter> key ordering the two PLMs. Depending upon your viewpoint, the epic delay in producing these UMBRELLAS is either very comical or very sad
Oh, and I should also mention that back in April of this year, when my Einsteins were shipped, I also received a PLM reflector that I had ordered the previous June. Of course, the V2 PLMs don't use a reflector so that was $13.00 thrown out.
tetrode wrote:
I ordered a pair of PLMs back in June of '09, Sean, along with my pre-order for a pair of Einsteins. I requested that the PLMs be shipped at the same time as the Einsteins. My crystal ball had failed to warn me that the lights wouldn't be ready to ship until April of the following year; fully 10 months after the order was first placed. Of course, by that time, the V1 PLMs were long gone and my order was converted to a V2 order. I'm still waiting. It has been almost 14 months since I first hit the <enter> key ordering the two PLMs. Depending upon your viewpoint, the epic delay in producing these UMBRELLAS is either very comical or very sad
Oh, and I should also mention that back in April of this year, when my Einsteins were shipped, I also received a PLM reflector that I had ordered the previous June. Of course, the V2 PLMs don't use a reflector so that was $13.00 thrown out.
E-Vener wrote:
And Dave F., How are your Einsteins?
The Einsteins are my first foray in the world of PCB lighting, Ellis. I'm a long-time Elinchrom user (and a very satisfied one I should add) but I'm also a techno-nerd and compulsive early adopter. I'll admit to harboring the same predjudices as many regarding PCB lighting gear and PCB the man. Mr. Buff can make it VERY difficult to separate the two when forming an opinion of his products. However, the promised feature set of the ABMax coupled with its relatively low price point led me to place a pre-order for those lights eons ago. Truthfully, based on what I had been reading on the forums, I wasn't expecting much and fully expected to resell the lights after I'd had a chance to play around with them for awhile.
Months passed, the ABMax became the Einstein, the most compelling promised feature of the ABMax disappeared (that being the ability to be powered from a modified sine wave inverter), and more months passed. My Einsteins materialized early on in PCB's shipping cycle as I was number 106 on the pre-order list so bear in mind my lights were from a very early batch.
Now, to actually answer your question: I have definitely experienced some issues but, on the whole, have been very impressed with the Einsteins. One of my lights had communication issues with the Cyber Commander and could not be configured properly. It had to be replaced. My first Cyber Commander would lose control of the lights at a distance of 11-feet. That too had to be replaced. My current pair of lights suffer from the Pocket Wizard EMI issue.
For the most part, I'm willing to consider the above teething pains. However, consideriing the gestation period of the Einsteins, I would have expected them to have been more thoroughly tested prior to release than just about any other consumer electronic product. Clearly they weren't and early on I did feel that I was doing beta testing for PCB.
Since getting the replacement Einstein and CC, everything has been humming along with hardly a hiccup. There are aspects of the Einstein that I actually prefer to my Elinchrom 600RX lights. I find the Balcar-style accessory mount less fiddly than the Elinchrom mount and I appreciate the fact that modifiers can be rotated when mounted. I also very much like that the flashtube is positioned forward of the front of the lights which places it further into softboxes and beauty dishes than is possible with Elinchrom's recessed tubes. While I would have preferred rotary controls, the Einstein's real pushbuttons that offer perceptible tactile feedback are actually a step up over Elinchrom's membrane switches. The wealth of readily-accessible information presented on the display panel also gets a big thumbs up. I have also grown very fond of the E640's compact form factor.
External build quality seems fine but I haven't subjected my lights to much abuse. An assessment of reliability will take time to formulate.
What I don't like is that I cannot conveniently use my Elinchrom Rotalux modifiers on the E640. The Deep Octa is a particular favorite of mine. I have tried mounting the DO using Jerry Kacey's AB and Elinchrom adapters. It works but does result in the flashtube being moved a bit further back than would be optimal. Probably not enough to cause a visible difference in DO performance. Performing surgery on an Elinchrom speedring might be the next step. We'll see.
I know this lengthy post is not what your were expecting when you asked, essentially, how I liked the lights. However, for me, that's a question that deserves more than a brief answer. Here's the real answer: I like the Einsteins well enough that lately I've been using them far more frequently than my Elinchroms. And don't tell anyone, but I actually ordered two more Einsteins just before the price increase. Hopefully, the revised Einsteins slated to be released around the end of this month will address the outstanding major issues.
Does anyone know if the new speedring cage assemblies will work with the V1 PLMs? I already have a 65" silver unit, and if I can make it work better with my Elinchrom lights by just buying an in-stock $13 adapter vs waiting for the backlog of PLM's to get my 7mm shaft version, that'd be worth it.
tetrode wrote:
I have tried mounting the DO using Jerry Kacey's AB and Elinchrom adapters. It works but does result in the flashtube being moved a bit further back than would be optimal. Probably not enough to cause a visible difference in DO performance.
Might be worth a comparison (lightmeter readings on face) w/ an Elinchrom since you have both. Kacey swore it made no difference when I asked him on POTN though, so you might be surprised...and if nothing else, you'd be an independent verification of this...
I preordered the PLM reflector too, but never bought it because I didn't like the issues I read about for the V1...
kenyee wrote:
...Might be worth a comparison (lightmeter readings on face) w/ an Elinchrom since you have both. Kacey swore it made no difference when I asked him on POTN though, so you might be surprised...and if nothing else, you'd be an independent verification of this...
Not to hijack the thread but, just to respond to your post, I did perform some tests using my 69" Rotalux. Here are two shots of the business end of an Einstein with the Kacey adapters and the 69" Rotalux mounted:
I can't, at the moment, find my table of meter readings taken at the face of the Rotalux. If I can't locate them, I might repeat the experiment and post the results in a dedicated thread. I ran the original test some time ago but seem to remember that evenness across the face of the box was perfectly acceptable.
One deterrent to me adopting this approach as SOP was, frankly, the cost of an additional WL/AB adapter and Elinchrom adapter as the set I already own is regularly used elsewhere. Cost issues aside, the Kacey adapters do provide a good solution and I expect to be buying another set in the near future.
It looks workable, but the adapter causes the flashtube to be recessed in a tunnel that fails to deliver what looks to be about 40% of the light to the umbrella surface. Also, the pebble-silver fabric on the Rotalux cannot focus the light to anywhere near that of a Silver PLM. There is also the issue of spill light. From looking at the geometry of the Rotalux, any focusing effect is extremely wide angle and likely produces a pattern about 150° wide. Fine for close in studio lighting situations where high output and spill control aren't important. It's simply a different creature than a PLM . . . and by different, please don't start jumping on me . . . I said different, not better or worse.
The PLMV2 produces an exposure of f16 at 30', ISO 100 from 640WS Einstein (GN 480) and works on an entirely different principle than the Rotalux. My intuition would be that a Rotalux with this speedring, or even from an Elinchrom RX600, would likely be in the f5.6 range at 30'. I would be curious to hear from an Elinchrom/Rotolux user exactly what ISO 100 exposure is achieved at 30' at 600WS.
