Bowens Gemini / Elinchrom D-Lite

Mr. Fish

Mr. Fish

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Rob
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Hiya guys, was wondering if any of you could input into this with your experiences etc.

Basically im switching from studio photography, to mainly sports, so have sold, and selling all of my broncolor lighting. I will be doing the odd portrait from time to time, so was looking at getting something cheaper, as its not worth having the bron and not really using it. Have around £500ish to spend, so was looking at the Bowens Gemini 400/400 kit or the Elinchrom D-lite 4 kit also..

What are your options on these kits? Is one noticeably better than the other? Im liking the sound of the bowens due to the fact, they have the socket to take their battery pack built into the head..

Cheers
 
Hi There - I have just bought the Bowens 400 / 400 kit and I am VERY please with it so far - Just one shoot today and they have done about 350 operations and stayed cool - metal body and switches to turn off the beep along with a switch to turn off the photocell and proportional modelling light - aligned with flash power setting or Full Model light on or off
Triggered by my Photix triggers via standard jack - I have only just started to play about with them - but loving the results - S-FIT mounting is solid and has the reasuring click


There is 20% off if you order from Calumet VIA the Focus on imaging show - have a look on there website
 
I doubt you'd be disappointed with either. I have the D-Lite 4kit and am perfectly happy with it. I believe there's a kit for sale in the classifieds at the minute.
 
As above, either will do the job and it really is down to personal preference I feel.

I dislike the plastic coated membrane switches on Elinchrom (much prefer a rotary dial for power and so on) but I do like to have the output shown in lights, as it were. Is fan cooling preferable(?) well perhaps, but Bowen's sell lots without. The Bowen's stand mount is far superior to the Elinchrom one IMO. I feel the issue of the modifier mount is a bit of an irrelevance, there are good cheap third party light modifiers available for both, and for the genuine OEM ones I don't think there is actually that much difference in price. As for the mechanics or physical mount itself (feel in use) I'd have to go with Bowen's, the Elinchrom one always feels a bit sloppy and insubstantial to me! Softboxes and the like, well I'm not as impressed with the Rotolux ones as many seem to be and would probably buy third party ones anyway, but have no experience of Bowen's OEM ones.

So on the whole I'd say try and get to see them in the flesh and buy whichever takes your fancy or has a better deal! ;)

Paul
 
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