A convinced strobist’s first photo shoot with Priolite MB500: Wow!

Some years ago I was really convinced that available (or rather ambient) light was that only light suitable for my kind of photography. That was until I stumbled upon David Hobby’s strobist.com. Excited by the possibilities of very portable, indirect flashlight on location, I dived completely into it and created very cool results (imho). But due to some limitations I encountered, I kept searching for improvement. And now… I have found it.

[Nederlandse versie]

But first look at a video of my first Priolite photo shoot:

Strobist photography is great! But…
Don’t get me wrong, I am very very very pro strobist photography. With just use a couple of portable flashes, light stands, radio triggers and umbrellas you are can achieve a lot of result with a relatively small budget. Throw in the right light modifiers and you can beautifully  light your subjects. And what’s more: you can easily hide the small flashes out of sight. But… while doing lots of photo shoots I ran into some limitations.

 

Limitation 1: Slow recycle times
Sometimes you need lots of light out of your flashes. For instance to overcome big differences in light and dark areas. A full power flash requires about 8 seconds to fully recycle. If you are impatient (which is completely logical if you are doing a portraitsession) you might often fire the flashes prematurely messing up the lighting. And keeping models motivated during those looong 8 seconds every times requires creativity that you’d better spend on making beautiful images.

Although I found a way to significantly reduce recycle times: by simply using battery packs. I still find the wait of about 2 to 3 seconds for a full power flash quite long. And then there is the ever returning issue of recharging the 4 batteries times 4 flashes and the 8 batteries times 4 packs. That one did a quick climb on my to do list.

 

Limitation 2: Need more power
It never ceases to amaze me how much light comes from such little flashes. Yet I regularly find myself needing more power. An example.

The sun was shining through the company’s logo. Lighting the executive and keeping details in the sky required me to flash at full power. Without umbella. Flash zoomed in close to the max. Although I like the resulting image, I would have liked to have enough power to use a light modifier and soften the flash light.

 

Limitation 3: Want model light
As a strobist I’ve learned to make an educated guess about how the light will strike a subject. And by making some preliminary frames I can adjust it rather precise. But cameras need more light than the average photog. In low light situations of in case of bright backlight they easily give up. An other example.

I made this photo for a dutch car dealer magazine. I had a brand new Saab 9-5 put on a car maintenance lift. All the lights of the car were on maximum output to create a threatening atmosphere. Which is contrasted by the executive posing relaxed. Because of the huge amount of backlight my camera was struggling to get the focus right. In post production I had to discard almost a third of all frames. Having a modeling light would have reduced that amount quite a bit.

 

Limitation 4: Remote power adjustment makes the life of photographer much easier
Radio triggers are my favorite way of putting my flashes to work. They are reasonably predictable and are easy to operate. But unlike using TTL you have to manually set all of your flashes. And adjust them.

Making an image like this one, it is not practical to get the flash down, adjust, raise it and aim it again. In this case I worked around the problem by setting the power on 1/4 and play with ISO, aperture and shutter speed. But it would be great to be able to remotely adjust your flashes.

Luckily innovations became available to end all of limitations mentioned. And still keep the strobist way of working. I selected the two most appealing of them.

 

Elinchrom Ranger Quadra RX vs. Priolite MB500

So I wanted:

• Short recycle times
• Far more power than normal flashes
• A model light
• Remote power adjustment
• Strobist portability
• Make an economical sensible decision

De Quadra was lange tijd aanvoerder van mijn verlanglijst. Tot de Priolite uit kwam. Uiteindelijk heb ik voor deze laatste gekozen. Waarom? Dit zijn mijn overwegingen:

Requirement	Elinchrom Ranger Quadra RX	Priolite MB500
Short recycle times	Fast, <1 sec. at 400W (4 sec. slow recycling setting)	Good enough, <3 sec. at 400W, but much better than my previous flashes
More power	400W (1 flash head per pack) 150 full power flashes (slow recycling setting, otherwise 110)	500W 400 full power flashes (!)
Model light	LED 50W equivalent	LED 100W equivalent
Remote power adjustment	Check	Check
Strobist portability	Yes, but there are power cables from head to pack	Yes, no cables at all!
Economical sensible decision	Can only use pricy light modifiers (+ adaptor). Even normal umbrellas won’t fit.	Cheaper to buy, cheaper to expand: Bowens S compatible, normal umbrellas fit

Am I happy with the choice I made? Yes, with much experimentation I was able to use the Priolites successfully. The photo shoot in the video above was my first with them.

 

Review Priolite MB500
So my experiences after a couple of photo shoots: Wow! Especially the abundant power and the remote power setting are the strongest improvements to my photography.

Aren’t there any drawbacks? Yes, a few. The flash head catches wind easily. So even with a little breeze you should pin down the light stand. Or use sand bags. And the hotshoe transceiver is quite big. But that’s not really bothering me. And finally a little nag: the little screw preventing the strobe not sliding from the stand is easily tightend to fast requiring a tool to unlock it. But these are small issues compared to the enormous gains you get from the Priolite MB500s.

So here is my verdict: highly recommended.

 

Want to know more? Contact me.