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Best Watt Size for Studio Mono Flash?


I'm finally going flash! Considering Elinchrom D-Lite 4 Compact Monolight Flash Kit. What's the best all mono flash size? 200 watt or 400 watt, or bigger?


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February 01, 2007

 

John H. Siskin
  Hi James,
Congratulations ... now you’ll be making pictures, not taking pictures!
Just to clarify: Watts and watt-seconds aren’t the same thing. Watts are good for light bulbs and watt-seconds measure strobe, which is what I think you’re getting.
I normally recommend 2 strobes of at least 500 watt-seconds and a third of about half that. Of course, they could all be bigger, say 750 or even a 1000 watt-seconds. I like big units because I use a lot of diffusion in controlling my light. I may start with a lot of watt seconds, but there are not so many after I filter, reflect and diffuse the light.
You may want some light panels. I have about 5 of these, very handy. You can build them yourself, check out: http://www.betterphoto.com/article.php?id=156. You may also want to look at the cheap ($30) radio slaves on EBay. These are for syncing your camera with strobes.
Good luck with strobes!
John Siskin


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February 01, 2007

 
- Gregory LaGrange

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  Where are you getting them from?

I 2nd getting some stronger than 400.


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February 02, 2007

 
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