Lighting Decision - Monolights or go the Strobist way

[KenJulio]

So for the last few months, I've been debating on either utilizing the Nikon CLS system or going with the Elinchrom D-Lite IT kit. Below, I have it broken down by pros and cons, I hope y'all can correct any of the thoughts I have and steer me a certain way.

Strobist/Nikon CLS
Pros
Portability
Groups and Channels
Cost?
TTL

Cons
Cost to add is near what it would cost to buy a 400w/s kit by Elinchrom
Limited Accessories/Quality Accessories
Recycle speed

Elinchrom/Monolight Kits
Pros
Recycle speed
Quality/type/selection of accessories
Still portable but not as compact as a strobist system
Groups and Channels with the skyports and PW

Cons
Separate remote trigger, PW, RP, skyports(included with the kit), etc

My budget $800.
Existing equipment, of course this will grow if I decide to go with the strobist route...
1 - SB600
1 - SB800
1 - Cheetah Stand
1 - Lumiquest SB III

Thanks in advance

[L Stegall]

First, I suggest you get the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson....yada, yada, yada...........oh wait, wrong topic....... [sorry, couldn't help myself].

Well, how are you going to be using these? How much does portability weigh in your decision? I think you can do a heck of a lot with the Strobist/Nikon setup and you are ahead of the game with the SB800 and SB600 on that front.

I can't speak to the Elinchrom stuff you are looking at, but it sure seems you can get a lot of miles out of the strobist set up.

[oldfotopro]

What do you photograph and when ?
Good Nikon strobes can do almost everything the studio strobes due. It does take a bit of ingenuity to modify the light as much as the studio kits can.
I've been on shoots where we hauled heavy lights and batteries around, and those where we shot with a hand full of camera strobes. Learn to do it correctly either way.

[Tom]

Good Nikon strobes can do almost everything the studio strobes due

Not quite. To get the amount of power, you need a LOT of lights.

I think I read that a SB-900 is about ~90-100w/s at ~$450-500. You can get an Elinchrom D-Lite 4 (400 w/s) for that. So to get the same amount of power of one DLite4, you need almost $2000 worth of SB-900s. And you are going to get a lot more consistent light with the one DLite than 4 SB-900s.

It all comes down to what you want to do. My current kit is:
3-580EX IIs
2-550EX
3-D-Lite 4s

What I use depends on the situation.

[oldfotopro]

Originally Posted by Thomas Campbell

Not quite. To get the amount of power, you need a LOT of lights.

I think I read that a SB-900 is about ~90-100w/s at ~$450-500. You can get an Elinchrom D-Lite 4 (400 w/s) for that. So to get the same amount of power of one DLite4, you need almost $2000 worth of SB-900s. And you are going to get a lot more consistent light with the one DLite than 4 SB-900s.

It all comes down to what you want to do. My current kit is:
3-580EX IIs
2-550EX
3-D-Lite 4s

What I use depends on the situation.

Granted. With todays technology power isn't as important as it was with film.
Each has it's advantages.

[Tom]

If you want to overpower the sun, power is extremely important.

[Tom]

Ken, check these out:
LumoPro LP160 Manual Flash

I think I am going to buy a handful of those for strobist shooting.

[kayumangi]

One thing though, you don't need a lot of WATTS to overpower the sun nowadays =)

If you can control your shutter speed and flash sync speed on your light source then you can shoot pretty much anytime of the day.

And going back to Ken's question, it all depends on your shooting. If you are more onto location shooting, I say portability wins.

But if you are more into shooting in a properly controlled environment I say got for the elinchroms.


If your issue with speedlights is recycle time, consider getting those 8AA battery packs from FlashZebra, I use a similar battery pack when shooting weddings for my Canon 540ezs. They work all day at a steady 1/8 to 1/4 power range and occasional 1/2 power with an almost instant recycle time, in fact sometimes I get carried away and shoot successively, luckily I haven't burned my speedlights yet =)

Also, with the Flex TT5 you can shoot beyond 1/250 or 1/200 limit even when using cheap flash like the Vivitar 285HV or the Sunpak 383 so speedlight cost is a non-issue I say.


My setup:
- 1x PW Flex TT5 to allow hyper sync
- 4x PW Plus IIs
- 3x Canon 540ez
- 1x Einstein 640
- a bunch of lightstands and ghetto PLMs.

[kayumangi]

Just realized you prefer CLS and Nikon. Disregard my original post.

[KenJulio]

Marius/Thomas/Lisa/David;

Thanks for opinions.

I should have stated what I will be using these for, at this time 100% on location shoot, either in/outdoors. I'd figure with the monolights, I'd need to add a Vagabond if it's an outdoor shoot, which adds about 300 to the cost, so about 1k for the d-lite it 4 kit and the vagabond.

Thomas - i was looking at those as an option as well, of course, it would require additional hardware, receiver for each, if I'm not mistaken.

[photonewb]

I'm much more preferential to going to with the monolights vs the speedlights. Speedlights are nice and they have their place, and will not be 100% replaced, but there are times where the larger and more powerful lights will offer better light and more consistant light.

Don't you already have a couple of pocket wizards Ken? That shouldn't be a con for any lighting, and if you're not interested in investing in the pocket wizards there are other options that are cheaper.

[The Philos]

I tried the strobist route - burned out the speedlights I had. Bought a pack system and monolights and haven't looked back.

I want to see this pulled off with a speedlight - shot straight into the sun ISO200 1/250@f/22+2 stop ND: http://www.bartkophoto.com/StacieN/StacieN_0028.jpg.

[KenJulio]

Correct, I do have a couple of PW's in hand.

[kayumangi]

Originally Posted by ThePhilosopher

I tried the strobist route - burned out the speedlights I had. Bought a pack system and monolights and haven't looked back.

I want to see this pulled off with a speedlight - shot straight into the sun ISO200 1/250@f/22: http://www.bartkophoto.com/StacieN/StacieN_0028.jpg.

@David: I think it's doable with a speedlight maybe not at f/22 and 1/250th of second.
With my Flex TT5 I can go beyond 1/250th so I can probably take the same shot at 1/500 to 1/1000 depending on how intense the sunlight is, 1/2 power on the speed light and maybe f/5.6 or f/4.

[The Philos]

I didn't think HSS was capable of putting out enough light to fill out a 27" BD or 3'x4' softbox.