Hi,
Last Saturday I attended the Launch Day for a two Strobeams, a very compact portable (the nomenclature of which eludes me while writing this!) and the Strobeam G5, a successor to the EID500. The launch consisted of Jonathan Ryan spending the day demonstrating the capabilities of the to lights with various backdrops, location scenarios and a few models (not to mention a fabulous Indian lunch).
The G5 is of the same ilk as the EID500 using IGBT circuitry but it is now fanless, has a superb integrated wireless remote control/trigger, is smaller and can recycle amazingly fast; one demo had rice being thrown over the model (Asian lady in ceremonial dress) and Jonathan shot at ISO400, 1/125, f4.0 with the G5 set on the 'SP' mode which is special low-power high-speed synch mode and he shot with his D90 (?) at 12fps and every shot was properly lit and every grain of rice was it's normal size and not elongated as is the norm with standard studio flash/shutter speeds. The battery pack has also been updated with caps to cover the terminals and a battery charge indicator included. I can't remember the number of shots available from a full charge running at full power but it was a lot; the battery can power two lights and they both get full power rather than 50/50 or 60/40 of other similar lights.
Quality, I thought, was excellent and the kit of 2 lights, 1 battery, 2 air-damped 3m stands, 2 large soft-boxes (though they can be swapped out for different accessories on request), 2 carry bags (lights & accessories) and obviously the remotes (standard AC and the amazing DC version). Going back to the remote, this is not only a very capable wireless trigger, rated at 1/320s, but it can also control 15 lights individually or together and you can see on the LCD display what you are inputting to the light although it is NOT two-way so you need to know what the lights are set at before starting to use the remote controller. So say you set 4 lights to full power then number them 1 to 4 , the remote lets you select each or all the lights, you then select say 1/2 power on the remote, press set and the selected light bleeps and changes the power to 1/2. I must admit, this would be great in the studio and I would use a pen & paper to draw a diagram with lights numbered & the settings used both for ease of remembering which light has which setting but also so I can replicate th setting in future should I want to.
All in all a brilliant bit of kit. If Strobeam decide to run this event again then, at £20 including lunch, I would recommend booking a place! Apparently, the lights will be available from Viewfinder very shortly and will also be displayed/available at Focus.
Hope you find this of interest.
Last Saturday I attended the Launch Day for a two Strobeams, a very compact portable (the nomenclature of which eludes me while writing this!) and the Strobeam G5, a successor to the EID500. The launch consisted of Jonathan Ryan spending the day demonstrating the capabilities of the to lights with various backdrops, location scenarios and a few models (not to mention a fabulous Indian lunch).
The G5 is of the same ilk as the EID500 using IGBT circuitry but it is now fanless, has a superb integrated wireless remote control/trigger, is smaller and can recycle amazingly fast; one demo had rice being thrown over the model (Asian lady in ceremonial dress) and Jonathan shot at ISO400, 1/125, f4.0 with the G5 set on the 'SP' mode which is special low-power high-speed synch mode and he shot with his D90 (?) at 12fps and every shot was properly lit and every grain of rice was it's normal size and not elongated as is the norm with standard studio flash/shutter speeds. The battery pack has also been updated with caps to cover the terminals and a battery charge indicator included. I can't remember the number of shots available from a full charge running at full power but it was a lot; the battery can power two lights and they both get full power rather than 50/50 or 60/40 of other similar lights.
Quality, I thought, was excellent and the kit of 2 lights, 1 battery, 2 air-damped 3m stands, 2 large soft-boxes (though they can be swapped out for different accessories on request), 2 carry bags (lights & accessories) and obviously the remotes (standard AC and the amazing DC version). Going back to the remote, this is not only a very capable wireless trigger, rated at 1/320s, but it can also control 15 lights individually or together and you can see on the LCD display what you are inputting to the light although it is NOT two-way so you need to know what the lights are set at before starting to use the remote controller. So say you set 4 lights to full power then number them 1 to 4 , the remote lets you select each or all the lights, you then select say 1/2 power on the remote, press set and the selected light bleeps and changes the power to 1/2. I must admit, this would be great in the studio and I would use a pen & paper to draw a diagram with lights numbered & the settings used both for ease of remembering which light has which setting but also so I can replicate th setting in future should I want to.
All in all a brilliant bit of kit. If Strobeam decide to run this event again then, at £20 including lunch, I would recommend booking a place! Apparently, the lights will be available from Viewfinder very shortly and will also be displayed/available at Focus.
Hope you find this of interest.
