Paul C. Buff – White Lightning X-1600 Consistency Tests

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Edible Verbiage Paul C. Buff – White Lightning X-1600 Consistency Tests

Let me know what you think.

- Wil

[Tom]

Cool write up. Isn't the complain though more on color balance when the shots are fired pretty close to each other? Like right away when it has recycled?

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Thomas,

I'm not sure. I can always do that test as well. The recycle time at maximum power is 1.7 seconds so I can do a 2-second interval test. I'll have to do that later as I'm out of time today.

Who shoots that fast in the studio anyway?! For me, that is extremely impractical. And I'm not dropping a bunch of X-1600s in the ceiling at a gym... so that metric is virtually unimportant... to me. And honestly, I've never shot at maximum power with the X-1600s in the studio. It's more like half-power at most.

If anyone wants a different metric, I would be happy to perform the tests.

The color variation does exist... as it does with EVERY strobe on the planet. The amount of variance may be more with the White Lightnings than with Profoto, Hensel, or Elinchrom. But, I am unable to test with those... at the moment... and even those manufacturers state that the variance is +/- 50 degrees Kelvin. And that is exactly what I've observed with the White Lightnings.

I have just heard all of these negatives about ABs and WLs without any proof. It's just all conjecture. Or at best it was "when I had ABs the color was all over the place"-type comments... no actual proof.

Well, here's my proof. There is ZERO variance in the power output and some variance in the color consistency. I wouldn't say it would ever been enough variance to bother me.

I'm borrowing a colorimeter from a friend next week and I'll also report on what the colorimeter has to say.

- Wil

[srwatters]

I would fully expect the White Lightning product line to outperform the Alien Bee units.

I have personally done experiments with AB-800 & AB-1600 and can 100% tell you that at less than 1/8 power you will have inconsistent results in power level from shot to shot. As much as 1/2 stop or more. I know this because I used to shoot headshots with my D200 at f/4 with a 5' octobox. I struggled with inconsistent exposure until I upgraded to the Norman ML600R which was very accurate over the entire 5 stop power output range.

[a2rob]

I have a Einstein coming in next week. I pre-ordered early and was No. 55. He claims consistency across the range with this unit. I am doing a little more studio type portraits these days and will report back.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Scott: I agree. I have never used the AB line so I can't comment but I have only heard inconsistency reports about ABs; not WLs. However, I fully expected the WLs to be a lot more inconsistent that they were.

A2rob: Great. Congrats on the new Einstein. Please let us know how it performs. I called them the other day to inquire about what material the Einstein housing was made out of. She told me it was polycarbonate; not lexan which is what the AB's housing is made of. Still sounds like "plastic" to me though. I'm a little bit disappointed that it's not aluminum like the WLs.

- Wil

[Wil_Bloodworth]

You know, I think most people seem to have a problem with the fact that the ABs and the WLs will fire again before they've completely recharged... thus giving an underexposed image. I agree that this is a PITA and should be fixed. I cannot think of any reason anyone would ever want their lights to fire again before they are completely recharged.

- Wil

[Kalrog]

Thanks for the info Wil - this is quite helpful. And I'm looking forward to seeing the results from the Einstein units.

I will say that I can understand wanting it to fire even when not fully charged. For studio work, you might not want it to ever happen but if you are trying to capture something like sports - the right moment happens on their time, not yours. So it is better to have a slightly under exposed image than miss it totally. I agree that a switch to control this behavior would be good though.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Nathan,

Oh, maybe I should've qualified that... I couldn't think of a reason I would ever want the strobes to fire in a studio situation. Of course, I think if I were going to be using WLs in a sports environment, I would probably bump up to the 3600, 5000, or 10000 versions. The X-1600 may not be strong enough for that. The recycle time is just too slow (1.7 seconds) at full-power.

- Wil

[Wil_Bloodworth]

I just got off the phone with Barbara in Paul Buff's office and she said the new Einstein lights will still fire, just like all their other models, without being charged completely to 100%. So... good or bad... that's the answer to that question.

- Wil

[d2creative]

soooo..... you know how studio lights tend not to have a quick enough flash duration to stop motion of things like splashes of liquid? Typically you have to use a speedlight for that kind of stuff. It sounded like the flash duration on the einstein lights are really short but I don't understand enough about the technical side of things to figure out if these are fast enough to stop motion like that. Anyone know?

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Dennis,

The flash durations on the studio strobes are plenty fast to stop water droplet motion. You only need a small portion of the studio strobes power... and thusly, the flash duration will be extremely fast... approaching (or possibly exceeding) that of a speedlight. The WL units will get down to 1/6000 of a second and the Einstein to 1/9000. Of course, if you don't need to shoot at an aperture smaller than around f/5.6 and you're relatively close to your (hopefully small) subject, then a standard speedlight is the best solution.

- Wil

[d2creative]

ok because i was doing some stuff this past weekend with the Speedotron 206vf strobes at my office and it's pretty sharp but some of it still has motion blur. Kinda wondering how the einsteins compare to these and to my alien bees in this respect. I'd rather work with studio strobes for this kind of thing rather than speedlights if possible.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4048/...93e7a3a8_o.jpg

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Dennis,

Nice shot. You could also say that the little bit of motion adds to the photo. If you want to decrease the flash duration, move it closer and lower the power as much as possible. Of course, the Speedotron 206VF only has a 1/1250s minimum flash duration... which is REALLY slow. An SB900/800/600/400 would be a better solution for this situation.

Here are the flash durations for Nikon's SB-900:
1/880 sec. at M1/1 (full) output
1/1100 sec. at M1/2 output
1/2550 sec. at M1/4 output
1/5000 sec. at M1/8 output
1/10,000 sec. at M1/16 output
1/20,000 sec. at M1/32 output
1/35,700 sec. at M1/64 output
1/38,500 sec. at M1/128 output

- Wil

[d2creative]

Thanks wil. I hate using those speedotron things anyway. That power supply has always been a pain in my side. I'd much rather use my AB's with adjustable power on each head.