I think that the intentions of those articles are way far from instruct people for what's really good, the intention is more about archive viwers. I use only speedlight but I agree with you, I know it's limitations. I think that technology has come a long way, and the li-ion batteries now pack so much punch that you can run a cordless, wirelessly-triggered studio strobe more easily and reliably than a Speedlight, which I've found to be more of a burden than I thought. I could probably keep going with my list but I don't want to hijack your article. With Profoto B2s, you've got 500 watt seconds, with no overheating and a snappy recycle time. The average Speedlight approximates some 150 watt seconds of power. Power: in a bright studio (like ours), where I normally shoot at ISO100, 1/125, and f/8 in order to drown out the ambient light, a Speedlight would have a heck of a hard time illuminating anything farther than 2 feet away when shot through a soft box. The only exception would be Lastolite, who make some great Speedlight modifiers, but by the time your flash goes through two layers of diffusion, you'll find that the power output is really struggling to keep up. Modifiers for Speedlights are small, flimsy, and made by third party brands that come and go with the wind. The range of modifiers available for a studio strobe is comprehensive. Speedlights are for quick, impromptu, supplemental light. I was really attracted by Profoto's Air Remote, which suffers none of the above. It's useless outdoors with sunlight present, and indoors it can be unreliable too. Nikon's CLS is great, but relies on short range, line-of-sight infra-red triggering. We photograph a lot of kids and I needed something that can keep up with their pace. And on full power, the units would overhear and shut down. And on occasions when I'd need faster recycle times, I'd used the optional battery packs, each one of which houses 8AA batteries. Recharging a dozen AA batteries got annoying, quickly. But a few factors forced me to ultimately upgrade to Profoto B2s.īatteries. For years I've used Nikon Speedlights (SB-900). While small flash does create some heat the impact that it has on ambient temperature is trivial at best. Even with the help of an air conditioning unit aimed directly at the model I often found that hot summers made for awfully uncomfortable shoots thanks to the heat generated by large lights. About halfway through the shoot I was worried that my model was going to face heatstroke. The armor was quite warm to begin with but with the help of the heat released by the big lights the set of armor quickly turned into a furnace. Small Flash Is CoolerĪ few years ago I was shooting a costume designer in a full suit of armor in studio blasting him with a set of three strobes. Meanwhile, small flash empowers me to use gels with almost no effort. Back when I primarily shot strobe I avoided gels as they added a giant headache to attach to the light, especially if I wanted to also modify the light with a softbox. And with the the help of tools such as MagMod or the gel holders created by ExpoImaging, gelling has become even easier than before. Gelling a speedlight is much easier than trying to gel a large strobe. Of late, I find myself using more and more gels to add creative mood or even just to balance mixed lighting. This universality allows me to invest in a more diverse range of modifiers that I know will last until they wear out (years) and won't need to all be completely replaced if some other company comes out with a new ground breaking light that I feel compelled to buy. It doesn't matter if I'm rocking Nikon, Canon, Yungnuo, Godox, or any other brand of speedlight, my modifiers are all going to work just fine. Meanwhile, speedlight modifiers generally require only a hot shoe. That switch meant all of my modifiers were suddenly obsolete and needed to be repurchased. Small flash works just fine for creating the "studio look." Small Flash Is Universalįairly early on I switched from Impact strobes to Alien Bees.
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