Paul Buff wrote:
I have nothing against Profoto, but fail to see how a picture of a girl on a rock constitutes a review.
Really... I thought you have put down the "European" manufactures a quite a few times in the past.... If you follow the link he provided it will go to the review.
Kacey wrote:
Really... I thought you have put down the "European" manufactures a quite a few times in the past.... If you follow the link he provided it will go to the review.
Kacey, I have not put down European manufacturers. I have, usually when a poster announces Euro lights are superior and my lights suck, compare specs and corrected mis-statements.
As to the "review" . . . come on, give me a break. This is Profoto's web blog, not an independent review . . . it's a commercial. God, if I posted a "review" from my website, written by a sponsored photographer, you would be all over me for bias and commercialization and using FM for hyping my products.
Are really naive enough to think Profoto is going to publish a critical review of their products on their own blog.
What I see here is a Vagabond II with a smaller battery and slightly larger inverter and a good bit more weight. With it's 20AH battery, Vag V2 will power 960WS worth of ABs (3 AB800 (320WS each) at full power for 400 shots per charge and a recycle time of 2.7 seconds (same as Profoto's D1000 published spec with special D1000 firmware to allow Bat mode . . . .1.5 times 1.8 seconds), or a 2500WS Zeus Pack for 100 full power shots . . . all for $299. See http://www.alienbees.com/VIIspecs.html
Again, if you want to buy a Profoto knock-off of my product at some ungodly price (not in the "review") be my guest . . . I'm not going to argue your choice. But my advice: Before you call something a "review" clarify your relationship with the company, and actually publish specs and measurements, not "Gee it cycles fast enough for me and I got quite a few pops out of it and it was bright enough."
Paul Buff wrote:
Kacey, I have not put down European manufacturers. I have, usually when a poster announces Euro lights are superior and my lights suck, compare specs and corrected mis-statements.
As to the "review" . . . come on, give me a break. This is Profoto's web blog, not an independent review . . . it's a commercial. God, if I posted a "review" from my website, written by a sponsored photographer, you would be all over me for bias and commercialization and using FM for hyping my products.
Are really naive enough to think Profoto is going to publish a critical review of their products on their own blog.
What I see here is a Vagabond II with a smaller battery and slightly larger inverter and a good bit more weight. With it's 20AH battery, Vag V2 will power 960WS worth of ABs (3 AB800 (320WS each) at full power for 400 shots per charge and a recycle time of 2.7 seconds (same as Profoto's D1000 published spec with special D1000 firmware to allow Bat mode . . . .1.5 times 1.8 seconds), or a 2500WS Zeus Pack for 100 full power shots . . . all for $299. See http://www.alienbees.com/VIIspecs.html
Again, if you want to buy a Profoto knock-off of my product at some ungodly price (not in the "review") be my guest . . . I'm not going to argue your choice. But my advice: Before you call something a "review" clarify your relationship with the company, and actually publish specs and measurements, not "Gee it cycles fast enough for me and I got quite a few pops out of it and it was bright enough."...Show more →
But, Paul, can you plug in multiple Profoto D1 1,000Ws units into the Vagabond II? Let me answer that for you, since I have tried... no. No you can not. Even two 500Ws units is a bit iffy on the Vagabond II.
Now, I'm still not going to say the BatPac is not overpriced for what it is... And you have to send the units in for a firmware update to work in "BatMode" - so maybe with that update it would actually work having two 1,000Ws D1 units on the Vagabond II... that's something I should perhaps test.
(And I agree this isn't quite a 'review' in the sense that you'd expect from DPReview or the likes.)
Paul Buff wrote:
Kacey, I have not put down European manufacturers. I have, usually when a poster announces Euro lights are superior and my lights suck, compare specs and corrected mis-statements.
This post doesn't seem to announce such a thing.
Paul Buff wrote:
What I see here is a Vagabond II with a smaller battery and slightly larger inverter and a good bit more weight. With it's 20AH battery, Vag V2 will power 960WS worth of ABs (3 AB800 (320WS each) at full power for 400 shots per charge and a recycle time of 2.7 seconds (same as Profoto's D1000 published spec with special D1000 firmware to allow Bat mode . . . .1.5 times 1.8 seconds), or a 2500WS Zeus Pack for 100 full power shots . . . all for $299. See http://www.alienbees.com/VIIspecs.html
How is this not commercial and hyping your product?
TTLKurtis wrote:
But, Paul, can you plug in multiple Profoto D1 1,000Ws units into the Vagabond II? Let me answer that for you, since I have tried... no. No you can not. Even two 500Ws units is a bit iffy on the Vagabond II.
Now, I'm still not going to say the BatPack is not overpriced for what it is...
(And I agree this isn't quite a 'review' in the sense that you'd expect from DPReview or the likes.)
But hey, it's not my fault Profoto didn't design their lights to run from inverters. Did you notice you have to download special firmware to make this thing work with D1's?
An off the shelf Vagabond 2 will power 2 off the shelf Zeus 2500WS packs (5000WS) or four off the shelf WLX3200 (1320WS each) or about as many 640WS AB or WLX lights as you want.
tayo wrote:
This post doesn't seem to announce such a thing.
How is this not commercial and hyping your product?
1. My response was in reply to a Profoto sponsored non-review that implied superiority. I believe what "I see" is the same as what others saw. The response was a comparison to what my product does vs the praise heaped on the other product by the "reviewer"
2. The link was documentation of the specs I referred to.
Yeh - I suppose you could take my comparisons as hyping my product . . . with a big caveat: In response to another poster blatantly hyping what appears as a knock off of my product. Which law of physics is it "for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction"?
Paul Buff wrote:
1. My response was in reply to a Profoto sponsored non-review that implied superiority. I believe what "I see" is the same as what others saw. The response was a comparison to what my product does vs the praise heaped on the other product by the "reviewer"
So far I didn't notice implied superiority except in comparing it to older Profoto products.
Paul Buff wrote:
2. The link was documentation of the specs I referred to.
Yeh - I suppose you could take my comparisons as hyping my product . . . with a big caveat: In response to another poster blatantly hyping what appears as a knock off of my product. Which law of physics is it "for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction"?
Yes, I was referring to the comparisons, not the link.
Paul Buff wrote:
or this, from the extremely well respected David Hobby http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/02/welcome-to-strobist.html (David is so damn legitimate he will not let me give him anything to review . . . . he insists on buying anything he reviews.
And David H. also ended up investing a sizable amount of money in Profoto gear after trying out a load of AlienBees. Each to his own in the end. There's no need for cheap pot shot remarks. He waited a long time for Einstein's to show up but in the end went with the expensive alternative.
Profoto has it's place among users, it just depends on what a photographer needs and is willing to spend.
There was no comparison made between ABs and Profoto lights. David Hobby was brought into this as an example of a legitimate reviewer, as was Rob Galbraith. The comparisons I made were between Vagabond 2 and Batpack, and were based on publication of what I considered a Profoto commercial, disguised as an unbiased review.
As for what David ended up buying, I have no problem with that whatsoever, or with whatever anyone else chooses to buy. I was a bit surprised however to see a Profoto Batpack paid advertisement at the top of the ads included with the "final purchase" blog though. http://strobist.blogspot.com/2010/05/follow-up-choosing-big-lights.html Last time I communicated with David (about a week ago) he wanted to buy a PLMV2 for review and insisted on paying for it, and has never mentioned or suggested I should advertise on his blog. I'll discuss this blog post and ad combination with him next time I talk to him.
As for cheap shots, I believe the first one came (tongue in cheek) from Ellis, and the second from Kacey.
As for battery operated pure sine inverters for studio lights, might I state that, to my knowledge, no such system existed prior to our original Vagabond 150 and Vagabond 300. This was followed by Tronix Explorer a year or two later and finally, many years later by Profoto with as close a copy to Vagabond 2 as one could imagine.
