Lencarta Li-on vs. Elichrom Ranger Quadra

[Sebastian]

Hi guys,

Have you seen the new Lencarta Li-on system?
Spec looks impressive and I'm currently searching for portable lighting to upgrade my game from speedlites.

The only real competitor is Elichrom Ranger Quadra, but this comparison chart is showing no mercy when it comes to the number of flashes per charge.

There is also a big difference in price - is it reflecting the quality?

http://www.lencarta.com/lighting-st...ash-system/safari-li-on-portable-flash-system

Please let me know what you think!

Thanks,

Seb

 

[Mahoneyd187]

Hi

I am currently in possession of a li-on, for the purpose of providing an unbiased review. Many on here know I love my Elinchrom gear above all else, so bare that in mind.

I've only had the li-on for the last week, but at this early stage I am happy to say I'm impressed. If I was buying into a system for the first time (ie no existing modifiers), and I needed a lightweight portable system, I'd buy the li on over the quadra. Ranger RX, no chance, but quadra, most certainly. The pack is well built, the heads are a little too lightweight for me and not as durable as I'd like, but for the money it's great.

Hope that helps

Danny

 

[Sebastian]

Hi

I am currently in possession of a li-on, for the purpose of providing an unbiased review. Many on here know I love my Elinchrom gear above all else, so bare that in mind.

I've only had the li-on for the last week, but at this early stage I am happy to say I'm impressed. If I was buying into a system for the first time (ie no existing modifiers), and I needed a lightweight portable system, I'd buy the li on over the quadra. Ranger RX, no chance, but quadra, most certainly. The pack is well built, the heads are a little too lightweight for me and not as durable as I'd like, but for the money it's great.

Hope that helps

Danny

It does help indeed. I would also love to be in possession of this kit
Who I need to email?

Now on the serious note:
How would you rate the build quality of heads and pack? Likely to break?

 

[Mahoneyd187]

My honest thoughts, in summary, as I will be writing a review, are;

The pack is very well built, durable whilst remaining light in weight. Pretty brilliant to be fair. The dust caps for the sockets are a little cheap, but that's the only indication it's at the cheaper end of the market. Otherwise, a cracking bit of kit.

The head, I believe appeals to the majority, in that it's extremely lightweight, and very small. I mean imagine small and light....and it's smaller and lighter...it does feel like a light duty head. For small to medium sized modifiers, itd be 110% fine. Stick something like a 120cm+ octa on and it'll be ok, as long as you're vigilant, and sensible.

This however, can be countered by using a third party speed ring, that features an additional thread for mounting on a stand. Ie, Mount octa to speedring, mount speedring to stand, then li on head to speedring.

Hope that helps

 

[Sebastian]

Thanks mate, sounds good to me. I'll have to find it and play with it. I'm looking for something for my trip to Nepal and this seems to tick all the boxes.

 

[Lencarta]

Hi

I am currently in possession of a li-on, for the purpose of providing an unbiased review. Many on here know I love my Elinchrom gear above all else, so bare that in mind.

I've only had the li-on for the last week, but at this early stage I am happy to say I'm impressed. If I was buying into a system for the first time (ie no existing modifiers), and I needed a lightweight portable system, I'd buy the li on over the quadra. Ranger RX, no chance, but quadra, most certainly. The pack is well built, the heads are a little too lightweight for me and not as durable as I'd like, but for the money it's great.

Hope that helps

Danny

That's certainly a good point Danny. The current Li-on head is designed to be ultra portable, literally pocket-sized, yet still capable of taking S-fit accessories (native support!). We are currently looking at adding to the system a heavy duty 3mm magnesium-alloyed version of the head, so people can have a choice. At this early stage details are not yet finalised, so "watch this space".

 

[Garry Edwards]

Well, the heavy duty heads for the Li-on are at a very early stage. If it happens, it will be a long way off and it will be an option, not a replacement for the existing heads, which market research tells us is what most people want.

The existing heads are small and light, but much stronger and better made IMO than the opposition - and they don't need an adapter.

 

[Mahoneyd187]

The existing heads are small and light, but much stronger and better made IMO than the opposition - and they don't need an adapter.

No argument here.

 

[Sebastian]

That's certainly a good point Danny. The current Li-on head is designed to be ultra portable, literally pocket-sized, yet still capable of taking S-fit accessories (native support!). We are currently looking at adding to the system a heavy duty 3mm magnesium-alloyed version of the head, so people can have a choice. At this early stage details are not yet finalised, so "watch this space".

Well, the heavy duty heads for the Li-on are at a very early stage. If it happens, it will be a long way off and it will be an option, not a replacement for the existing heads, which market research tells us is what most people want.

The existing heads are small and light, but much stronger and better made IMO than the opposition - and they don't need an adapter.

I think that light weight, high amount of flashes per charge and S-fit native support are your strongest points.
I will consider buying Li-on for my workshops both in UK and Nepal. Well done guys, looks like a great piece of kit!

 

[ShawWellPete]

Just ordered a set of Lencarta Li-On so will revert back to this thread once I have had a play.

 

[cherryrig]

Whats the flash duration on these? Good enough for sport, as I couldn't find anything on the website that listed the duration times

 

[Garry Edwards]

Whats the flash duration on these? Good enough for sport, as I couldn't find anything on the website that listed the duration times

The flash duration is there, on this page

Flash duration: The Lencarta Safari Li-on has a short flash duration of 1/1400th sec at full power and 1/900th sec at minimum power. This is fast enough for all normal portrait/fashion/glamour usage.

Flash duration can be a bit of a trade off - it's easy to produce really short flash duration simply by making a physically smaller flash tube, but it can create stress and shorten life. There are other ways of doing it too, but none are perfect.

 

[JonathanRyan]

Oh, i'm a bit late to this party but Danny has pretty much said it all.

I don't personally like Quadras (too many design trade offs). In my opinion (and I had the Li-On for a month ) the Safari Li-On beats the Quadras on every single point that's useful to me. Small, lightweight, high power, huge range of modifiers and great battery life. I didn't check flash duration or colour accuracy beyond noting that they seemed fine.

When you compare the price.....well it's not even close.

I guess a mag alloy head is going to be pricey but that would be a great upgrade.

 

[HoppyUK]

Whats the flash duration on these? Good enough for sport, as I couldn't find anything on the website that listed the duration times

There's a review of powerful battery heads in the next edition of Advanced Photographer magazine, due out in mid Jan. It includes the Lencarta Li-on, Elinchrom Quadra, Elinchrom Ranger RX, Broncolor, Profoto, Quantum and Bowens.

The review includes real world flash durations, as opposed to t.5 claims, presented in the same way as the similar review of regular mains flash units are shown in the current edition. There are also real power outputs, recycle times, colour temps, battery capacity measures and modelling light brightness.

Sorry I can't say more than that right now and you'll have to wait until the magazine goes on sale

Edit: oh, and some power measures of hot-shoe guns for comparison.

 

[itsdavedotnet]

I don't personally like Quadras (too many design trade offs).

ugh, flimsy, tiny heads, expensive adapters if you want to use any real mods on them, and not much more power than a speedlight.

 

[JonathanRyan]

ugh, flimsy, tiny heads, expensive adapters if you want to use any real mods on them, and not much more power than a speedlight.

All of that (though they do have a decent amount of power) plus I think they seriously dropped the ball on battery tech. Li-on gives you so much more longevity that most people won't need a spare.

 

[DT01]

ugh, flimsy, tiny heads, expensive adapters if you want to use any real mods on them, and not much more power than a speedlight

dang, I'd better take my ones back then and get a couple of extra SB900's....

 

[Garry Edwards]

There's a review of powerful battery heads in the next edition of Advanced Photographer magazine, due out in mid Jan. It includes the Lencarta Li-on, Elinchrom Quadra, Elinchrom Ranger RX, Broncolor, Profoto, Quantum and Bowens.

The review includes real world flash durations, as opposed to t.5 claims, presented in the same way as the similar review of regular mains flash units are shown in the current edition. There are also real power outputs, recycle times, colour temps, battery capacity measures and modelling light brightness.

Sorry I can't say more than that right now and you'll have to wait until the magazine goes on sale

Edit: oh, and some power measures of hot-shoe guns for comparison.

I've had email correspondence with Richard before he carried out these tests (and I think before he was even sure which units he would have for testing) so I don't know anything about his findings.

That said, I'm quietly confident that the Lencarta Safari Li-on will have aquitted itself very well, and that people will have to spend a lot more money to get any worthwhile performance increases. Having tested all of these competitors myself I think that the only 'weak' area of the Li-on is the flash duration. Others are faster. It's technically very easy to get really short flash durations, but Lencarta has gone for a low stress system instead. It's really a business decision - which is more important, short flash durations in a product designed to be used outdoors when the effective flash duration is limited by shutter speed, or bomb-proof reliability?

I'll stick my neck on the line though. I haven't always seen eye to eye with Richard on everything he's said, but the tests he's carried out on the continuous lights and the first batch of studio flash (I haven't seen the tests on the second batch yet) seem to me to be both thorough and fair. I have no doubt that his tests on the Li-on etc will be just as thorough and fair.

 

[Sebastian]

There's a review of powerful battery heads in the next edition of Advanced Photographer magazine, due out in mid Jan. It includes the Lencarta Li-on, Elinchrom Quadra, Elinchrom Ranger RX, Broncolor, Profoto, Quantum and Bowens.

The review includes real world flash durations, as opposed to t.5 claims, presented in the same way as the similar review of regular mains flash units are shown in the current edition. There are also real power outputs, recycle times, colour temps, battery capacity measures and modelling light brightness.

Sorry I can't say more than that right now and you'll have to wait until the magazine goes on sale

Edit: oh, and some power measures of hot-shoe guns for comparison.

Great! I'm not usually buying Advanced Photographer magazine, but I will this time

ugh, flimsy, tiny heads, expensive adapters if you want to use any real mods on them, and not much more power than a speedlight.

Couldn't describe it better

All of that (though they do have a decent amount of power) plus I think they seriously dropped the ball on battery tech. Li-on gives you so much more longevity that most people won't need a spare.

That's a very good point. If I will decide to buy it I will be using it on full power to overpower the sun. Battery life must be good!

 

[paul williams]

Great! I'm not usually buying Advanced Photographer magazine, but I will this time

I don't normally read any magazines as I find there is little of value to me, however, my interest was peeked by some of the flash comparative tests, so I started looking out for a copy(s) - but never found any!

Paul

 

[HoppyUK]

I've had email correspondence with Richard before he carried out these tests (and I think before he was even sure which units he would have for testing) so I don't know anything about his findings.

That said, I'm quietly confident that the Lencarta Safari Li-on will have aquitted itself very well, and that people will have to spend a lot more money to get any worthwhile performance increases. Having tested all of these competitors myself I think that the only 'weak' area of the Li-on is the flash duration. Others are faster. It's technically very easy to get really short flash durations, but Lencarta has gone for a low stress system instead. It's really a business decision - which is more important, short flash durations in a product designed to be used outdoors when the effective flash duration is limited by shutter speed, or bomb-proof reliability?

I'll stick my neck on the line though. I haven't always seen eye to eye with Richard on everything he's said, but the tests he's carried out on the continuous lights and the first batch of studio flash (I haven't seen the tests on the second batch yet) seem to me to be both thorough and fair. I have no doubt that his tests on the Li-on etc will be just as thorough and fair.

Cheers Garry In the magazine tests, I took the view that short durations were important, more so than in the studio, simply because when shooting outdoors your subject is more likely to be moving.

It's a moot point though. In practise there's the problem of x-sync shutter speeds as you say, and the need for ND filters to control that. Plus the danger of ambient bluring regardless.

Personally, I disapprove of the tail-hack method of high speed sync (big loss of power and very uneven exposure down the frame, like maybe three stops difference top to bottom) but I'll admit that these questions are to some extent subjective.

The ultimate solution is to gang four (or more) hot-shoe guns in HSS/FP Sync mode, but that gets expensive. This guy uses eight, but gets some great results - Dave Black http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNDAINwhTWU

And raw power is important too, if you are to do battle with daylight and have any real hope of winning. Again, often more power needed outdoors than studio.

 

[HoppyUK]

I don't normally read any magazines as I find there is little of value to me, however, my interest was peeked by some of the flash comparative tests, so I started looking out for a copy(s) - but never found any!

Paul

Finding a decent selection of photo mags is difficult these days, but you'll usually find Advanced Photographer in Tescos or W H Smith.

One thing about magazines that you very rarely find on the web, is they commission people to do the kind of big comparison tests that no individual could realistically hope to undertake. In the last couple of months, I've tested 19 different studio heads from ten different manufacturers, all side by side using the same criterior, and have discovered a few uncomfortable facts about some brands.

Anyway, I'm done with studio flash for a while I hope. It's radio triggers next - I've got about a dozen of them so far

 

[JonathanRyan]

That's a very good point. If I will decide to buy it I will be using it on full power to overpower the sun. Battery life must be good!

Yeah the smallish weight advantage of the Quadra is more than offset by the IMO need to carry a spare battery. Every pro I know who uses a Quadra carries at least one spare.

I tested the Li-On pack and got numbers that are better than even the ones on the Lencarta website. [That's probably to be expected as I was using a "used" pack - Li-Ons seem to get better after the first several cycles.]

 

[Garry Edwards]

Yeah the smallish weight advantage of the Quadra is more than offset by the IMO need to carry a spare battery. Every pro I know who uses a Quadra carries at least one spare.

I tested the Li-On pack and got numbers that are better than even the ones on the Lencarta website. [That's probably to be expected as I was using a "used" pack - Li-Ons seem to get better after the first several cycles.]

You can see my own test results in my "Real world tests on the Safari Lion", here's an extract

The first thing to test was the number of flashes from a battery charge – which isn’t quite as simple as it sounds. People keep comparing the Safari Li-on with the Elinchrom Quadra – now the Quadra only has 2/3rds of the Li-on power (400 Ws against 600 Ws on the Li-on – so I thought that the most useful figure was a direct comparison at 400 Ws.

So I tested it at the same 400Ws that the Quadra has, firstly at normal recycling speed and secondly at fast recycling speed, which uses more battery power.
At normal recycling speed I got 715 flashes
And at fast recycling speed I got 543 flashes. I was seriously impressed by this, especially as the Elinchrom Quadra stated figures are just 110 and150 flashes respectively, which means that the Li-on Lithium Ion battery produces 5 times as many flashes as the Quadra lead acid battery at the same power setting, even though the Quadra battery weighs a fair bit more.

Then I recharged the battery again and tried it at the full power of 600 Ws, and got 362 flashes on fast recycling and 479 flashes at normal recycling.

I rounded the 362 flashes down to 360, and that's the figure on the website. My test method was to set my D3 intervalometer to fire a flash every 5 seconds until there were no more flashes.

Jonathan told me that he actually got 404 flashes at full power, that doesn't surprise me as Lithium Ion batteries do improve with use, but I prefer to under-promise and over-perform.

Yeah the smallish weight advantage of the Quadra is more than offset by the IMO need to carry a spare battery. Every pro I know who uses a Quadra carries at least one spare.

The Li-on batteries were in short supply at first, so Lencarta limited spares to just one per customer, and very few people bought a spare battery. That restriction has now been removed but I'm happy to say that even though people can now buy as many as they like, nobody who already has a Li-on has come back to buy a spare battery, even though several people have come back to buy an extra Li-on kit!

 

[Mahoneyd187]

ugh, flimsy, tiny heads, expensive adapters if you want to use any real mods on them, and not much more power than a speedlight.

I may be wrong dude, but I think you can use full size Ranger RX heads with the quadra pack, with the use of an adapter for the head cable. Ranger RX heads are pretty serious, and in this case offer a viable heavy duty option to the Quadras arsenal. In my opinion, that's the single weakness of the Li-on, the lightweight heads are fantastic, and satisfy most customers, but that heavy duty head, as/when it comes to market, will be a deal maker for some.

 

[itsdavedotnet]

yep, you can connect EL heads and Ranger heads with the correct adapters. £75 and £90 respectively.

 

[Mahoneyd187]

yep, you can connect EL heads and Ranger heads with the correct adapters. £75 and £90 respectively.

I knew you'd know you lighting wizard you

 

[Garry Edwards]

yep, you can connect EL heads and Ranger heads with the correct adapters. £75 and £90 respectively.

Hmm.. Those Ranger heads seem to me to be basically the generator heads of 25 years ago. £90 per adapter + you lose the modelling lamp...

 

[itsdavedotnet]

I knew you'd know you lighting wizard you

more annoyingly, profoto doesn't make a similar adapter to use pro heads on an acute pack

 

[Mahoneyd187]

more annoyingly, profoto doesn't make a similar adapter to use pro heads on an acute pack

 

[Ralphmyster]

I have some Quadras and the build quality is very good and you know they are going too take the knocks and not fall to bits. I was at the bessel unit 4 days ago they are going to Focus and they might be looking into a portable system for then.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Well, the Advanced Photographer magazine is now out. I was expecting the Safari Li-on to do well compared to other makes, because I’ve known for the last 10 months that the Li-on performs a lot better than the website said and that some other makes don’t perform as well as they claim – but it’s good to get it confirmed in an independent review.

It came top. Best in test.

I’m not quoting the magazine itself because I’m not going to infringe their copyright. They have given permission to publish ‘snippets’ of their test but if you want to read what they actually said you have to get the magazine.
The Lencarta Safari Li-on (£800 with free armoured carry bag) scored 95% on test* and easily beat all other makes and models. The other products tested were the
Profoto Acute B2 AIRs, £2,150, scored 88% on test*
Elinchrom Ranger Quadra, £1,115, scored 87% on test*
Elinhrom Ranger RX, £1,725, scored 76% on test*
Quantum QPAQ-X £1,630, scored 73% on test*
Bowens Gemini GM250R, £1,250, scored 71% on test*
Broncolor Mobil A2L £4,080, scored 71% on test*
*Prices and test results from Advanced Photographer

The second best performance in the test was from the Profoto Acute, although unlike the Safari Li-on it can only power 1 flash head, and costs nearly 3 times as much but most people compare us to the Elinchrom Quadra instead, which costs £315 more for a similar 1-head option but which has
slower recycling,
only 1/13th of the flashes to a battery charge
and less than half of the power of the Safari Li-on, because although it’s rated at 400 Ws it was found on test to only actually deliver 270Ws.

The Li-on power output was only beaten by Profoto in the 600Ws class, and Profoto only beat it by 0.2 stop, with both models delivering enough power to overwhelm the sun.

Even the much more expensive Elinchrom Ranger RX, rated at 1100Ws, only actually produced 0.6 of a stop more than the Lencarta Safari Li-on.

Personally I'm delighted with this review. It's an enormous help when an independent, high quality magazine backs up what we say about our products, and a glowing review like this one means that people can now see the real life facts for themselves, and not assume that it’s cheap for a reason.

The only critical point made about the Safari Li-on in the test is that the flash durations aren't as quick as the tester would like. Personally I don't see the point of really short flash durations on lights designed for outdoor use because the limiting factor is always the shutter synch speed, but Richard (Hoppy UK) who tested it is entitled to his opinion. Actually we could easily produce a unit with shorter flash durations, but shorter flash durations place extra stress on the system, so Lencarta hasn’t gone down that route.

More info is on the Lencarta website, which I have now updated.

 

[JonathanRyan]

Nice

One question for clarity since it will be a while before I can see the test....does the score take price into account? I.e. is one of the reasons it rated higher than say the Profoto because it's cheaper?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Nice

One question for clarity since it will be a while before I can see the test....does the score take price into account? I.e. is one of the reasons it rated higher than say the Profoto because it's cheaper?

I don't know any more about the testing methods than anyone else, but looking at the actual tests I can see that price is a factor in all tests, because the tester allocates marks out of 25 for value for money. At opposite ends of the scale, Lencarta got 25/25 and Bron got 15/25 - but if you remove the value for money element altogether, the Li-on still got 14% higher ratings... Same goes for the other makes too, the Li-on would still be top with no account taken of value for money.

 

[ShawWellPete]

Contratulations on the review Garry, I'm enjoying the li-on system. Only having small strobes to compare it to it is great to be able to use real modifiers and, of course, nice to have the extra power.

I was surprised it was not possible to power the lights separately but I guess, now I think about it, it makes sense as they are both getting a single charge from the battery.

You know what would be very nice? A bracket that attaches to a light stand somehow to properly support a beauty dish.

 

[treeman]

I read the review this morning in Smiths, (too tight to buy it) and I thought the scoring was a little random, but either way it was clear the Lencarta should come out on top, even if for no other reason than the price, its an absolute steal!

If I remember correctly the Profoto lost 5 points for only taking 1 head and 2 points for build quality? (I could be wrong on this, happy to be corrected).

It would have been nice if they'd taken a few other factors into account, like units with built in wireless, slave cell (I use mine indoors, a lot too) and remote control of power settings.

The biggest surprise was the Bron unit!

 

[Garry Edwards]

Contratulations on the review Garry, I'm enjoying the li-on system. Only having small strobes to compare it to it is great to be able to use real modifiers and, of course, nice to have the extra power.

I was surprised it was not possible to power the lights separately but I guess, now I think about it, it makes sense as they are both getting a single charge from the battery.

You know what would be very nice? A bracket that attaches to a light stand somehow to properly support a beauty dish.

I don't know of any systems that allow truly independent power control of each head, basically it would mean having two separate flash generators in the same box - technically easy enough but bulky, heavy and expensive.

You can easily fit a speedring adapter into a head and have the speedring adapter attached to the stand if you want to - but with care, you can use heavy modifiers with the head as it is. It isn't the strongest head in the world (although a lot stronger than other makes with plastic heads) but I've used it with both the 70cm beauty dish and the 150cm octa softbox - just don't do it in strong winds and make sure that you use a second stand to take the weight of the modifier, oh and of course use guy ropes in the wind anyway.

Lencarta is planning to offer a metal head as an alternative in the future, but that is some way off still. The metal head will make it heavier and bigger to transport of course, but will provide reassurance to people who are worried about using the existing one with heavy mods.

 

[ShawWellPete]

Thanks Garry, can you explain this assuming I am a not too bright. I have read it three times and don't get it.

You can easily fit a speedring adapter into a head and have the speedring adapter attached to the stand

 

[EOS_JD]

The only critical point made about the Safari Li-on in the test is that the flash durations aren't as quick as the tester would like. Personally I don't see the point of really short flash durations on lights designed for outdoor use because the limiting factor is always the shutter synch speed, but Richard (Hoppy UK) who tested it is entitled to his opinion.QUOTE]

Garry forgive me if I'm wrong but sync speed and flash duration are two different things. If shoting at 1/200th shutter speed but with a much faster flash duration, the flash would therefore freeze the subject - not the shutter speed...... So i you shoot that type of thing regularly would a faster flash duration not be more appropriate for you?

I appreciate you may not want or need to do that all the time but just wondering why you don't see the point of what I thought was an important issue.

A great review though and I know a few people will now be very tempted wit this as an option.

Cheers
Jim

 

[ding76uk]

Flash durations are the only thing holding me back. The Safari is just not fast enough for Skatboarding, which is why I will probably end up with the Elinchrom at some point.