Studio Lighting Kit thoughts

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eftpotrm

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Greg
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Hi all :-)

After looking for ages and passing up a bunch of good deals recently because it didn't feel right just yet, I've suddenly had a great big shoot I can't do comfortably with hotshoe flashes land in my lap... Oh well! I'm looking at 2 head 3-400w (per head, not total) kits. Doesn't seem much point in going lower, too close to what I can do with hotshoe guns, and higher is out of budget. I've got backdrops and so on so they're not an issue, I just need the lights and peripherals.

Options that seem sensible to me at present are:
* Interfit Venus 300 twin head
* Elemental Genesis 8 Twin 400Ws
* Lencarta ElitePro Twin Head Starter Kit

I hear mixed things about Interfit - some loved the gear, some hated it. But it's over £100 cheaper than the others. Who are both new, smaller vendors which makes me more concerned about long-term support but they're getting great feedback from every corner at the moment. The Elemental is a 400 against 300 for Lencarta but lists GN 65 against 162 - now I've heard both WS and GN figures as remarkably variable but still, that's a big jump! Elemental have the slight advantage that they're local to me so if I need to shout at someone... ;-)

Considered but currently out are:
* Bowens Gemini - looks nice but out of budget
* Elinchrom D-Lite - nice enough but seems to have a slightly fragile reputation? Plus harder to get compatible modifiers
* Calumet Genesis - again looks nice and also local, but Elinchrom mount
* Micansu - cheap, spec looks good but can't find enough reputation for them to be confident investing.

Would anyone care to offer any thoughts / suggestions?

Thanks,


Greg
 
Guide numbers - Lencarta express the guide number in feet (because most of us still think in feet not metres so it's easier to get a feel of the real amount of flash energy. Therefore, you know that with the standard reflector fitted to the ElitePro 300 head you'll get f/16.2 @ 100 ISO) and I'm assuming that the other seller is expressing the guide number in metres.

Don't worry AT ALL about the number of joules stored in the capacitors - worry instead about how many capacitors there are in the flash head itself, because that figure is (mainly) responsible for the recycling speed, colour consistency and output consistency - and Lencarta comes out on top.

BTW, Lencarta has been around for 11 years now so is hardly new - although it has only been selling pro quality gear for the last couple of years.

Back to guide numbers - how useful are they?
Answer: That depends on who does the testing, it depends on the reflector fitted to the flash head and it depends on the testing environment. Elinchrom and Lencarta guide numbers are 100% accurate, I have no idea about the others.
 
Thanks - should've thought of m/ft... :bonk: Numbers add up then :-)

I'm sure I'd notice the difference between a 100w and a 1000w head but I'm not at all stressed about a 1/3 stop difference. Otherwise, from what I've seen the units are pretty similar so just wondering if anyone knows otherwise?

Thanks for confirming Lencarta's age BTW, I'd thought they were younger than that from when I first registered them. Confess I first thought 2-3 years ago they were A.N. Other rebadging generic Chinese gear, but the reviews since have persuaded me they're serious.
 
You know you get those idle moments...
I checked the specs on the other two units you're interested in and saw no mention on either of them of a cooling fan - and both have low powered modelling lamps, which may indicate that neither of them have a fan.
I may be wrong of course, but something you might want to check for yourself
 
Hi, I Bought my first studio kit - (1 month ago) the Interfit Stellar X 300w umbrella/softbox kit and am very happy with it. They have built in cooling fan and are very easy to use.

I did 'toy' with the idea of the venus kit, but for just a little more ££'s these were just that bit more pro.
 
Just to throw another into the mix, also looking at Elementals M series 300w heads. Seem to offer a lot over the Genesis - faster recycling, fan cooling (albeit Genesis being an aluminium shell it's less issue than with Elinchrom D-Lites) for very little downside. Look like some nice heads.
 
I'm interested in your view that lack of fan cooling is less of an issue with an alluminium shell - why do you think that?
 
Garry Edwards said:
I'm interested in your view that lack of fan cooling is less of an issue with an alluminium shell - why do you think that?
Click to expand...

I imagine because aluminium is a great conductor of heat and therefore the whole casing acts as a big heat sink via which heat can be transferred out of the lamp and in to the air.
 
Hot plastic melts. Hot aluminium is what heat sinks inside computers are - it's a good conductor and radiator of heat. I can deal with a gun that's hot to the touch rather better than one that's soft to the touch!

Anyway, looking like the M series guns at present, which are cooled anyway.
 
Thanks for the reply, it's interesting that you think that. And you may be right, although I believe that metal needs to be finned (as in a computer or motorbike engine) to act as an efficient heatsink.

But whether you're right or not, the fact of the matter is that any flash head that is not fitted with an efficient cooling fan is very likely to overheat, unless it is also fitted with a modelling lamp so weak that it's virtually useless.
 
eftpotrm said:
Hot plastic melts. Hot aluminium is what heat sinks inside computers are - it's a good conductor and radiator of heat. I can deal with a gun that's hot to the touch rather better than one that's soft to the touch!

Anyway, looking like the M series guns at present, which are cooled anyway.
Click to expand...

the M series heads are very good, I wasn't aware that the genesis heads don't have a fan. That is a dealbreaker imo if you want to be able to use them for any length of time... there's a good deal on 4* 300ws heads in the 'sale' section :)

Tbh, your best choice is probably between them and lencarta heads, both are good heads with good personal support from enthusiastic companies, take bowens S fit mods which are very easily and relatively cheaply available. Take your pick really...
 
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