![]() ![]() That’s just a resistor, which turns extra energy into heat. So, most flashes also contain a “dumping circuit”. ![]() You have to adjust, pop the flash to dump the power, then pop it again to meter. The usual way to get rid of it quickly is to fire the flash. That’s a lot of energy (300J can easily defribulate you). If you’ve got 600J in the cap, and you want to go down to 300J, you have to get rid of 300J. If you’ve already got 300J in the cap, and the user wants 600J, it only takes another second to suck in another 300J. Turing the flash up is easy, you just suck more power from the AC mains. Set it to full power, it then charges up to 600J. Set a 600J flash to half power, and it charges the capacitor up to 300J. We’ll just use the abbreviation “J”) to flash with the power you set. A conventional flash charges the capacitor up with enough energy (Watt-seconds, or Joules. One of the most annoying problems of conventional flashes is “dumping”. There's no blurred hands if you do things like photographing seniors doing sports poses, dance moves, etc. But, as soon as you start turning down power, even half a stop, the IGBT turns off the flash quickly at the end of the exposure, while the conventional flash “trails off”, causing a motion blur. At full power, there’s essentially no difference between an IGBT and anything else on the market. IGBT flashes have much better motion stopping ability. The Solair holds +/-100K over an 8 stop range, from full power to 1/128 power. The Einstein and the Scoro hold +/- 50K over a 9 stop range, from full power to 1/256 power. An IGBT flash holds essentially constant color temperature at any power setting. ![]() If they let you turn it down 9 stops, the color would be so far off, you'd scream. That’s one reason most of them only allow you to reduce power over a 5 or 6 stop range, from full to 1/16 or 1/32 power. You can see visible color mismatches in main, fill, and hair lights. So, what's so special about an IGBT flash?Ĭonventional flashes get warmer, more orange, by about 100K every time you reduce power by a stop. Yeah, about 10x the price of 3 of the others). Photogenic Solair (about $700 each, new), Paul Buff Einstein ($500 each, new), and Broncolor Scoro A4 ($16,000 for one pack and 3 heads. There are basically 3 IGBT flash systems on the market. In my opinion, the only reason to deal with Photogenic was their IGBT "Solair" series of flashes. Spring an extra $100 and get Paul Buff "Einstein" units. Price is 400 each, what is the feeling between these used and AB's new. The light modifier attachment isn't compatible with anything else, and I find it a bit awkward with speedlights.Īnd they're just a plain old, garden variety monolight, like one from a dozen other manufacturers, nothing to write home about. They have an awkward control system, a horrible remote power control setup (infrared transmitter for adjusting power, and you then have to hook up an RF receiver to trigger the flash, unless you get one of the Photogenics "Radio" models that has a built in Pocket Wizard receiver). Looking at the possibility of picking up some of these used and was wondering if anyone has experiences to share. ![]()
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