[pure-silver] Re: Where is everyone?

I can second the idea that, if you are going to use large lightboxes, and/or large subjects, and/or large format, then power is essential.

I have a 1000ws pack and a 1600 ws pack and they were never able to cover a room full of product at f22 with ASA100 film. I had to resort to multiple pops.

I'm sure I could have done it with one pop had I been using 120 film/camera.

Portraiture is another kettle entirely, since you don't need the deep depth-of-field.


At 04:28 PM 12/27/2005, Nick Zentena wrote:

So how many watt seconds is enough? Have I missed any makes in making my
choices? 


Here's an interesting site:

http://www.studiolighting.net/choosing-the-right-studio-strobe/

I have 500WS and 1000WS Dynalite power packs and five heads. I also have Softboxes from a v-e-r-y large Chimera (54"x72") to a very tiny Photoflex (24"x32"). All softboxes have two layers of white material for the light to pass through before reaching the subject. This eliminates hot spots, but ups the power requirement.

Unless I have the softboxes sitting right on top of the photo subject, I need all of the power that I have. I can get 500WS into two large softboxes and 250WS into a third, or a third and forth. This is still a strain at ASA 100 (Provia) if the subject is large and the softboxes are a reasonable distance away from the subject. If I use ASA 400 print film, things are much easier. I have a Chimera double head speed ring for the my giant Chimera and I typically put 1000WS into it. That's only almost one stop over one head. A lot of light gets lost in the internals of a softbox.

I cannot definitively answer your question, but if you are going to use softboxes, go for LOTS OF POWER!!!

Even though it is not my camera, a Nikon D100 is frequently used with my studio strobe set-up without problems. Just plug it in and fire away.

:-)

Jim

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