Upgrading from Portaflash - what benefits?

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sparklies

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Rosie
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Hi all,

My first post pretty much, but I'm a long-time lurker :wave:

I currently have a set of Portaflash 336VM lights that my husband got me for Christmas a year ago. They've been mostly fine for taking photos of my own children, but I've recently decided to go into business doing portrait photography (mostly children) and I suspect they're not going to cut it for long!

One of the things I've noticed a lot is that the recycle time is very high - I can only realistically take a photo every few seconds which is terrible when you're trying to capture expressions on extremely fast children!

If I upgraded to, say, the Lencarta ElitePro kit which I have my eye on at the moment, would the recycle time come right down? What other benefits would there be?

Basically I feel pretty bad at upgrading a Christmas present, but if I can really justify it in the business sense to both of us then I wouldn't feel so guilty!

Thank you!!

Rosie
 
Recycle time of Lencarta ElitePro 300 = 1 second at full power, 1/5th second at minimum power. At the same power that your Portaflash gives out you'll be on about 1/8th power, which will recycle in less than half a second = 2 shots per second.

Other main benefits...
Consistent colour temperature, consistent flash energy, the ability to fit light shaping tools, 8 times the power (approx), radio trigger system, much better build quality, standard fitting to light stands.
 
Thank you very much Garry! I was hoping you'd respond, but I'm super-impressed with the speed for late on a Saturday night! Great information - exactly what I was looking for. I have to admit to getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to easily buy standard accessories and more power/consistency is always good. And I desperately need radio triggers.. small children and sync cables just do not go!

I already have a Lencarta background support system which I've been very happy with, and a friend bought one of the ElitePro kits a few months ago and was delighted, so they're definitely top of my list right now.

It just occurred to me - would I still be able to use the Portaflash lights for lighting the backdrop (perhaps with gels, which I do have) if I wanted to, or would they not be powerful enough up against the ElitePros?

Rosie
 
Given the difference in power output and the lack of modifiers, I very much doubt whether they would be much use - unless you stuck them in a Hi-lite, which is pretty efficient in terms of power requirements.
But you could use them with gels, as long as you're happy with a fairly dark background.
But you'd still be restricted by the slow recycling.
 
Good point. I'd probably only use them with adults or older children (I'm doing a few non-children!) as timing is less critical. A dark background wouldn't be a problem as I do like them from time to time :)

Thank you very much for your help!

Rosie
 
Thanks for the link! Will definitely consider it, although it's a little more pricey!

Rosie
 
sparklies said:
Thanks for the link! Will definitely consider it, although it's a little more pricey!

Rosie
Click to expand...

It's a little more pricey for the lights.
When you buy the accessories it becomes a lot more pricey;)
 
But worth it. Trusted brand, excellent quality light, consistent, reliable, high resale value, blah blah blah.

Lights are a long term investment (like camera bodies), make the right choice at the beginning. Look for the bargain prices on the current d-lite coming down as the d-lite IT is launched at the Focus show.
 
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