Elinchrom Five?

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Kris

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Anybody else notice the eli Five on display at the NEC?

Tempted, but perhaps 'Five' years too late?

IMG_20220920_130804.jpg
 
Interesting, but I can't find anything about it on the web. I wonder how much it costs for one?
 
Yeah, perhaps 'five' hundred too expensive too.

Have to say that the pack and head design of the elb500 has its merits over the all in one design du jour of the five. 680g or 3kg at the top of a stand in front of the talent, but the five is ac/dc apparently.

Apparently, they have realised the pricing on the elinchrom one was rather insane for what it was and is probably coming down to the current 589 price point https://theflashcentre.com/collections/elinchrom-one. Even that's a hard sell for a flashguns worth of power and a permanent battery.
 
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Yes, and I feel that their pricing is generally optimistic. It seems to me that they decided, some time ago, to go head-to-head against Profoto, which is itself a niche brand . . .
It's a great pity IMO, I've always had great respect both for the brand and for the people who run it, but a company that wants to survive and grow in competition with Godox needs to make the right decisions.
 
The B1X is £2.4k and can't be mains powered, the D2 is £1.9k and has no battery. It's not Profoto pricing so who is it really competing against?

The AD600 Pro is closer to half the price so I'd assume its biggest competitor will be the rest of their own range, the ELB 1200 isn't directly comparable but £3k is a tough figure so maybe the ELB 500 at £1.3k? I'm going to assume the Elinchrom Five should have been cheaper but inflation, currency rates, supply issues etc all take their toll.

I think these monoblocks just destroy the small portable pack and head systems though, the ELB 400 got wiped out 'relatively' quickly, the B4 by the B1 etc. I'd expect the ELB 500 to follow.

Had this been 5-10 years sooner things could have been different.
 
sk66 said:
I really like that Godox makes extension heads for their strobes... it's my favorite way to use them.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I own one of the Godox extensions and I wasn't suggesting it's a good or a bad thing but I do think the market has spoken on its preference between them and monoblocks.

One of my biggest complaints about Chinese gear was how they never reused any designs, every new product had a new set of tooling and accessories which also made them fairly disposable but Godox re-using parts across models I think has been one of the most positive things they've done. Making accessories for multiple purposes (speedring adapters for heads, extensions, ac adapters, r200 for ad200, round head for speedlights and all the magnetic accessories, batteries etc) I think was one of the smartest decisions they could have made.
 
sk66 said:
I really like that Godox makes extension heads for their strobes... it's my favorite way to use them.
Click to expand...
The history here is that Godox was the first manufacturer to sell directly to consumers (instead of to wholesalers and retailers), so they received useful feedback directly from their customers - and of course, producing separate heads is a very cheap option.

This strategic policy decision was essential for their growth. It created a load of problems for their customers, such as non-existent customer support, but it paid off for Godox.
 
It does make the light much more versatile. In the studio (or as a regular light anywhere tbh) I can just put it on a stand without having to assemble it, or if I do need it overhead on-location the Godox AD-S13 collapsible boom arm does a reasonable job of holding it. I have the clamp at the fulcrum point here. This rig won't support large modifiers but this 7" reflector and honeycomb is no problem. The whole thing packs into/onto a medium sized camera backpack (with a more compact stand of course..) Practically, I would almost always use an AD200 with the 4" reflector and grid to do this, as the whole thing is much lighter (both when rigged and when on your back) however it's worth knowing you can use the 600 for a stop and a half more light if you need it.

The odd thing about it, is that the remote head is still actually quite heavy considering there's nothing in it. It is much heavier than the Lencarta Safari-II head for example.

1663970157267.jpeg
 
I absolutely agree Scooter.

I can perhaps forgive AC only, high powered monobloc heads as, if I'm near a plug socket, I can probably c stand and bag it. Still rather a pack and head though.

Location, DC powered, pack and head lights are no longer made by some of the main players. Neither Profoto nor Elinchrom make them - the pack and head ELB1200 Eli has been discontinued since 2020 (only introduced 2017 replacing the earlier ranger).

What's left for high powered location pack and heads? Bron Move, Hensel porty and ..... the excellent ac/dc Godox ad1200. Perhaps the ad1200 is the reason Eli sh!tcanned it after only three years in production. I know some are annoyed at Profoto and Elinchrom about this - they don't want to hang 3+ kgs in front of lawyered up talent while still having the freedom to place a light anywhere on location.
 
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I think that the loss of generator flashes (English for pack + head) is mainly a casualty of
1. Technology
2. Marketing
3. The relentless march of reduced consumer choice.

1. Technology. In the past, nearly all pro studio photographers shot on 5x4 or 10x8 sheet film, and needed to shoot at f/45 or f/64, which required very high flash output. Digital killed that, and improvements to technology allowed ISO to be set to very high levels, reducing the need for high flash output. And, to some extent at least, flash used outdoors doesn't need as much power as it used to because flash sync speeds are higher.

2. Marketing. Good marketing is now far more important, in terms of sales, than good products. All of the big players (in every field) are now extremely good at marketing, and the public tend to believe that a product that has 10 marketing bullet points is much better than one that has only 5, even if nobody actually understands the claims made for the product. Because of this, most consumers actually believe that the product can do everything that the seller claims. Of course, in the pro photography world, this isn't helped by the massive changes to pro photography, which means that only a tiny number of users have been taught their trade working for a large commercial firm of photographers.

3. The relentless march of reduced consumer choice. Most people now believe that we have far more choice than before, but in reality the opposite is true. This is partly due to the tactics used by sellers such as Amazon, which makes it very difficult and expensive to sell real choices, but mainly to the growth of big business, which drives smaller competitors to the wall, forcing people to buy from the market leader. Just to illustrate this point, how many flash manufacturers do you think will exist in 5 years from now? My answer is that there will only be Godox, although it's possible that Bron may be able to continue to serve their niche market for longer. And, of course, this reduced choice has already created much higher prices, and the situation will only get worse for us.
 
Garry Edwards said:
2. Marketing. Good marketing is now far more important, in terms of sales, than good products
Click to expand...
At the Photography Show last week, the trickle of false LED marketing bullet points ("it's softer", "our panels are also flashes", "it's easier to carry on location as you don't need any modifiers") has now turned into a full-on tsunami with multiple brands and manufacturers selling LED panels and spots. Notably Light&Motion with their "it's also a flash" Stellar Pro Reflex-S with its "18000 lumens in flash mode" - if you power it from a 100Watt USB-C DC power source (and if only 100Watts goes in, there can't be more than 100 Joules of light per second coming out of it, or, for a reasonable shutter speed of say 1/100 of second, less than 1 Joule of light energy is delivered. A typical Speedlight consumes ~70 Joules of electrical energy well within that 1/100th, and would seem to output something in the order of 1,000,000 lumens if the light covers a square metre. https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/output-of-a-camera-flash-in-lumens.170622/

See this very misleading video from B&H
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEcvlUS_qs

eg: they show a stroboscopic flash image of a basketball player. They are implying in the video that this is a long exposure shot with multiple flash pops to freeze the figure at intervals. There is a significant ambient light element in the image though, and yet no motion blur between flash image stamps of the figure. This is not one frame with multiple flashes: it's multiple frames stitched together post-capture - and motion is frozen by the camera's shutter, not the "flash", because, as with all of these "LED flashes" all that's happening is that they overdrive the LED for the entire shutter operation (i.e. from the camera's POV, it's still a continuous light - it just turns off between exposures to lower the overall heat build-up. This is a clever way of getting more output from the same LEDs, but a flash, it ain't).

Lots of other dubious statements in this video..

"Powerful and fast, lightweight and rugged - the Stellar Pro has all these covered". It's not powerful (compared to even a tiny flash head). It's not "fast" as it's always on for the duration of the exposure, even in "flash" mode, and by the looks of some of the customer reviews, it's certainly not "rugged", and at 1.4kg it's 3 times the weight of a Godox V860-II Speedlight.

And yet the Stellar Pro bandwagon is loaded to overflowing with photographers who presumably skipped more than one physics class at school. At the price they're asking for the Reflex-S, it almost makes the Five a good buy :p

Garry Edwards said:
Most people now believe that we have far more choice than before, but in reality the opposite is true. This is partly due to the tactics used by sellers such as Amazon, which makes it very difficult and expensive to sell real choices, but mainly to the growth of big business, which drives smaller competitors to the wall, forcing people to buy from the market leader
Click to expand...
Also - the illusion of multiple manufacturers, when they are merely multiple labels stuck on the same product. Neewer (a global equipment labeling business) actually had a stand at the show this year! And don't get me started on Westcott, with all those Jinbei lights they "created".
 
Garry Edwards said:
I think that the loss of generator flashes (English for pack + head) is mainly a casualty of
1. Technology
2. Marketing
3. The relentless march of reduced consumer choice.

1. Technology. In the past, nearly all pro studio photographers shot on 5x4 or 10x8 sheet film, and needed to shoot at f/45 or f/64, which required very high flash output. Digital killed that, and improvements to technology allowed ISO to be set to very high levels, reducing the need for high flash output. And, to some extent at least, flash used outdoors doesn't need as much power as it used to because flash sync speeds are higher.

2. Marketing. Good marketing is now far more important, in terms of sales, than good products. All of the big players (in every field) are now extremely good at marketing, and the public tend to believe that a product that has 10 marketing bullet points is much better than one that has only 5, even if nobody actually understands the claims made for the product. Because of this, most consumers actually believe that the product can do everything that the seller claims. Of course, in the pro photography world, this isn't helped by the massive changes to pro photography, which means that only a tiny number of users have been taught their trade working for a large commercial firm of photographers.

3. The relentless march of reduced consumer choice. Most people now believe that we have far more choice than before, but in reality the opposite is true. This is partly due to the tactics used by sellers such as Amazon, which makes it very difficult and expensive to sell real choices, but mainly to the growth of big business, which drives smaller competitors to the wall, forcing people to buy from the market leader. Just to illustrate this point, how many flash manufacturers do you think will exist in 5 years from now? My answer is that there will only be Godox, although it's possible that Bron may be able to continue to serve their niche market for longer. And, of course, this reduced choice has already created much higher prices, and the situation will only get worse for us.
Click to expand...

On the point of technology it's not just the move from larger formats, the gap between a monoblock and pack has narrowed enough that 'most' people are going to be fine with either and then there's the staggering price difference.

If you buy the only pack Profoto is offering with two heads that'll set you back £20k and there isn't a cheaper option, it's £20k or you're buying monoblocks.

Broncolor fairs better as the same equivalent is roughly £18k and if you don't mind the lower spec Scoro E with 1600 W/s heads the price drops to around £10k but that's still three times the cost of buying their most expensive mains monoblocks. It's why we've seen nearly every pack and head battery system killed off by the battery monoblocks alternatives.

I think Profoto and Broncolor are making a mistake by not offering a budget pack option as they should be doing everything they can to hold onto their existing customers and give them every incentive to stay within their ecosystem, maybe they just can't do it cheaply but I bet the big hurdle is they don't want to eat into sales on the top end.
 
simonbarker said:
On the point of technology it's not just the move from larger formats, the gap between a monoblock and pack has narrowed enough that 'most' people are going to be fine with either and then there's the staggering price difference.

If you buy the only pack Profoto is offering with two heads that'll set you back £20k and there isn't a cheaper option, it's £20k or you're buying monoblocks.

Broncolor fairs better as the same equivalent is roughly £18k and if you don't mind the lower spec Scoro E with 1600 W/s heads the price drops to around £10k but that's still three times the cost of buying their most expensive mains monoblocks. It's why we've seen nearly every pack and head battery system killed off by the battery monoblocks alternatives.

I think Profoto and Broncolor are making a mistake by not offering a budget pack option as they should be doing everything they can to hold onto their existing customers and give them every incentive to stay within their ecosystem, maybe they just can't do it cheaply but I bet the big hurdle is they don't want to eat into sales on the top end.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of what you say, although I do believe that the main need for generator flashes was the need for a lot of flash power when using large format cameras. I sold off all of my own generator flashes a few years ago, simply because I no longer needed the power, and they were all listed on eBay. Nearly all of them were bought by Chinese customers, and large format photography is massive in China.

I bought quite a lot of Elinchrom generator flashes in about 2000, plus a few mono heads. There were 6 of their 2400j units (Chic model?), a 6000j one and (I think) a 1500j, which I think was called the Rapid. All worked both hard and flawlessly for years, with just the occasional tube breakage and service. Elinchrom was never a top brand in my opinion but they were of pro standard and were streets ahead of the Bowens offerings. Bron was obviously the best choice, but I didn't consider them because of their pricing. I didn't even think about buying Profoto because, rightly or wrongly, I always thought that they offered extremely poor value for money, with Bron at around the same price but much better, and Elinchrom at much more realistic pricing and nearly as good.

One recurring problem, which arose whenever I needed to use several generators plugged into the same ring circuit, was that they drew too much amperage and blew the fuses. One big advantage of the current battery generator units is that this problem no longer exists.

I never did get to try out Elinchroms' latest battery-powered generator, but was very unimpressed with their earlier one, with the lead battery - it was too small, too underpowered and ran out of battery far too quickly for my type of use.

It always seemed to me that Bron has superb performance but terrible marketing, that Profoto has superb marketing but only slightly above-average products and that Elinchrom had both good marketing and good products. But, today, nobody can compete with Godox, although Bron may continue in their very specialised niche market.

Back on topic, I still can't find out anything about the new Elinchrom 5 except for this VERY brief 3rd-party review https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/...rom-stellapro-and-calibrite-products-revealed Is this just a flag run up the pole at the Photography Show (which IMO is itself on the way out) to see whether anyone saluted it?
 
Probably the most interesting thread I've read for ages.

I'm still happily using my pair of Safari II's. And nearly eight years after purchase they are still operating at close to 100% capacity - despite a 2 year mothballing.
One of the best photographic purchases that I've ever made.
 
DemiLion said:
Probably the most interesting thread I've read for ages.

I'm still happily using my pair of Safari II's. And nearly eight years after purchase they are still operating at close to 100% capacity - despite a 2 year mothballing.
One of the best photographic purchases that I've ever made.
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My Safari-II is also still going strong, and I use it mainly in the studio when I need to put a light on a boom (pack and head means a light and a counterweight!). I swapped out the radio for the 2.4GHz one and it works flawlessly with the newer X-Pro controllers. The only maintenance I've done to it over the years (apart from cleaning bits of gel off the tube) was to put a small square of gaff over the hole I wore in the power button... Lencarta SuperFast 600's also still working perfectly after 10 years.
 
Yes, both the Safari 2 and the SuperFast were outstanding products, pity that they had to be discontinued. Lencarta was unique in that they were able to get things done. I remember sitting in the boardroom of a large Chinese manufacturer with all of their top brass. Their chief engineer was telling us that everything that we wanted was technically impossible and wasn't needed anyway, as their existing products were perfect.

There was a display of outstanding portraits on their wall, and in a lull in the conversation I went through them all, complimenting them and saying which modifier had been used as key light, where it had been placed etc and, although something may have been lost in translation, their Chairman was very impressed (it turned out that he had taken the shots himself) and the attitude changed completely. It turned out that he was also a fan of the old Rolliecords and Rollieflexes, and my knowledge of their models helped too. They suddenly realised that I was a real photographer and was worth listening to,

Sadly, lighting is now an electronic product rather than a tool for photographers, and things have changed.
 
Garry - I think you should write all of this down - I always enjoy hearing your tales of what really goes on in the lighting manufacturing world.

Every time two engineers meet for the first time, there's a protocol negotiation that takes place where the highest common factor of knowledge is established :)
 
There’s not much online about the FIVE yet as it’s not been officially announced by Elinchrom themselves. Should see something over the next few weeks with stock arriving end of October start of November
 
I was misinformed, it isn't ac/dc but dc with 'active charge'.

So that's me out, as I much prefer an ac adapter to save the (£359) battery over time. Assuming this isn't a replacement for the mains only elc that is.

www.elinchrom.com

Elinchrom FIVE | Battery Monolight

A battery monolight with 500Ws of power allows you to work on location with up to 450 full-power flashes. The Elinchrom FIVE features TTL, HSS, bi-color LED modeling light, and a removable battery.
www.elinchrom.com www.elinchrom.com
 
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Kris said:
I was misinformed, it isn't ac/dc but dc with 'active charge'.

So that's me out, as I much prefer an ac adapter to save the (£359) battery over time. Assuming this isn't a replacement for the mains only elc that is.

www.elinchrom.com

Elinchrom FIVE | Battery Monolight

A battery monolight with 500Ws of power allows you to work on location with up to 450 full-power flashes. The Elinchrom FIVE features TTL, HSS, bi-color LED modeling light, and a removable battery.
www.elinchrom.com www.elinchrom.com
Click to expand...
According to this reviewer/promoter (John Gress), you can power it off the USB-C adapter even if the battery is completely dead.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQrml20mJHM


Must admit I agree with you though Kris - I've never seen battery power in the studio to be a significant advantage - unless you're in a poorly designed studio that doesn't have enough power outlets, or enough capacity in the supply. 10 seconds to plug in a cable, and then you don't worry about it - ever. The power cords are not really an issue. In fact, I've adopted this philosophy for my "behind the scenes" video cameras. I use old Nikon bodies for this job (I program the shutter button to record a video and attach an intervalometer that activates the shutter every 20 minutes and 3 seconds). This will go for about 90 minutes on a battery, however, with the camera plugged into the mains (via a dummy battery) it records until the storage runs out (the longest I've had it going is about 11.5 hours which filled about 70Gb of a 128Gb card at 1080p/24. ). I also power my main camera this way for product shots so I can use the live-view, and/or the HDMI port, which eat a lot of energy.
 
Kris said:
I was misinformed, it isn't ac/dc but dc with 'active charge'.

So that's me out, as I much prefer an ac adapter to save the (£359) battery over time. Assuming this isn't a replacement for the mains only elc that is.

www.elinchrom.com

Elinchrom FIVE | Battery Monolight

A battery monolight with 500Ws of power allows you to work on location with up to 450 full-power flashes. The Elinchrom FIVE features TTL, HSS, bi-color LED modeling light, and a removable battery.
www.elinchrom.com www.elinchrom.com
Click to expand...

If you're wanting a studio version then you already have the ELC 125 or 500 models - then this FIVE is the battery on-location version of those. Yes you can use a USB-C powerbank or even a mains adaptor if you want to use the FIVE from a power socket
 
Scooter said:
According to this reviewer/promoter (John Gress), you can power it off the USB-C adapter even if the battery is completely dead.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQrml20mJHM


Must admit I agree with you though Kris - I've never seen battery power in the studio to be a significant advantage - unless you're in a poorly designed studio that doesn't have enough power outlets, or enough capacity in the supply. 10 seconds to plug in a cable, and then you don't worry about it - ever. The power cords are not really an issue. In fact, I've adopted this philosophy for my "behind the scenes" video cameras. I use old Nikon bodies for this job (I program the shutter button to record a video and attach an intervalometer that activates the shutter every 20 minutes and 3 seconds). This will go for about 90 minutes on a battery, however, with the camera plugged into the mains (via a dummy battery) it records until the storage runs out (the longest I've had it going is about 11.5 hours which filled about 70Gb of a 128Gb card at 1080p/24. ). I also power my main camera this way for product shots so I can use the live-view, and/or the HDMI port, which eat a lot of energy.
Click to expand...

I really like the AD600Pro design - you can swap the battery for a mains adapter which converts the unit to a standard monobloc. And then you can attach a remote head so you got something closer to a pack and head system, especially handy for boom arms (where I used to use the battery powered AD360).

I typically attach the body to the legs of the boom with a superclamp to add a bit of ballast.
 
juggler said:
I really like the AD600Pro design - you can swap the battery for a mains adapter which converts the unit to a standard monobloc. And then you can attach a remote head so you got something closer to a pack and head system, especially handy for boom arms (where I used to use the battery powered AD360).

I typically attach the body to the legs of the boom with a superclamp to add a bit of ballast.
Click to expand...
Me too :) I tend to stick it on the opposite end of the boom as a counterweight. The only bad thing I've found about it (although mine is the older AD600BM) is that the flash bulb can mysteriously drop off the light. I've cracked two glass domes this way, and it's a bit of a mystery how they work loose, as there's a lot of resistance on the pins when you push it in.
 
Yes, the ad600 is a better, more versatile design. Especially so if you can only afford the one light.

Scooter said:
how they work loose
Click to expand...
Thermal expansion of the socket perhaps? Something to keep an eye on.
 
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Kris said:
You can indeed, but it's more an 'active-charger' for the battery rather than a mains adapter.
Click to expand...
From my testing it keeps the charge rather well and if I do need an extra bit of juice it helps

I know the ELB 1200 used to have a huge mains power adapter where you’d remove the battery and add this. However the ability to use any power bank like the ONE is a nice to have
 
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