Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I hope it is okay to post this question here. I am interested in buying either the Alienbees or White Lightnings. Doesn't matter.

I would like to have 4 lights. One on each side of the subject(s), a back light and a hair light. Can you tell me what would I need to accomplish this? I am looking for lighting that will light the subjects well all over.

I also want to know if you have a remote trigger that I could use on my camera shoe to set the lights off automatically using a Sekonic light meter I have. What do you recommend for that? It doesn't matter whether they are your White Lightening or the other lights you offer that come in different colors.

Thank you and I appreciate your help.

I would recommend with AB800s or Einstein 640 (more expensive).

But to fire them selectively from Sekonic, you'll have to buy four PW units. You could use just one PW and let the other three lights fire from their built in slaves.

Cyber Commander and four CSR+ receivers will cost you less, and will replace the Sekonic, and will allow to to meter and fire lights individually, and to adjust power levels of each light right from your camera, at less cost than four PWs.

Also, I would recommend against two front lights on either side of the subject at anywhere near equal angles because this will give you cross shadows on the nose and generally uninspired lighting.

The better approach would be a main light with umbrella, softbox or PLM above the subject's eye level (main light), and the fill light well below eye level, also with umbrella, etc., and at lower power than the main light.

Another commonly used technique is "over and under lighting" . . . main light considerable above eye level and almost straight on, and the other light filling in the shadows from well below the eye level. If you are doing head and shoulders, you can often replace the fill light with a simple white fill panel.

Hope this helps.

Just curious Paul, why you excluded the White Lightning? I own all three brands now, I love the WL' s for there ruggedness and wish the new E640 was built on that platform. That would have eliminated the melt down problem and the mounting finger problems you are dealing with now.

That being said, I love the E640 control and stable WB of the light. If money wasn't a concern, I would recommend that one too. I keep my WL's in my trunk all the time and never worry about them. Not sure I would do that with the plastic bodies of the other 2 brands... My single AB is great for the background light because it's small and easy to hide.

To the original poster, what ever light you buy from Paul Buff, you will be very happy with. He makes a good product and stands a behind it. As far as lighting technique, along with what Paul said is good advice. There are many books and free stuff on YouTube on lighting setups. Everything from 1-5 light setups can give very good results depending on the look your going for.

Good luck and have fun with it...

I wouldn't exclude WL1600. Price has been reduced and they are still solid.

But Einstein has so much more performance, and the CSXCV needed for Cyber Commander is $29.95 VS $89.95 for the CSR+ needed for WL/AB, and does a whole lot more on Einstein than on AB/WL.

As for the Polycarbonate housings . . . it takes 300°F to soften the housings . . . same as an RX600 or other Polycarbonate housing. A car trunk reaches 150°F max so that's not an issue. All heat and mounting issues on Einstein have been solved.

E640 is clearly the highest performance light on the the market at any price and will ultimately displace WL.

So are you recommending 4 800's? Sorry for being naive but what is a PW? I would like to fire the other lights using the slaves so what receiver and transmitter would you suggest I get? I would love to have something that fires from the hot shoe of my camera if possible.

Thank you again

PW means Pocket Wizard. The cheapest way is Cybersync CST transmitter (hot shoe mount - $59.95) and one CSR receiver ($69.95) connected to one of the B800s. The other lights will fire from their built in flash sensitive slave trippers. Limitations are: no remote control of power settings and no selective firing of individual lights . . . all connected lights will fire from the camera. Also, if other photographers are shooting in the same area, their flashes will fire the 3 slave responsive Bees.

One Cyber Commander ($179.95) and four CSR+ receivers ($89.95 each) yields all sorts of features not found in any other system . . . see http://www.alienbees.com/remotes.html for complete info.

Luap, please don't take this the wrong way. You know I'm one of the biggest Paul Buff fans and advocates out there, to the point where I get asked frequently if I work for you. And you can have my Cyber Commander when you pry it from my cold, dead hands (or offer to upgrade it to one with an antenna and lanyard hook).

But if it's "at any price", the Broncolor Scoro A4S is the highest performance light. Same +/- 50K temperature, but...

• 10 stops adjustment range, vs. 9
• 50 flash/second high speed mode, vs. 12
• 3200 W-s vs. 640
• Sequence mode with up to 4 packs
• Color temperature tuning
• A modeling light mode where if you put one channel to 2 stops down, another to 3 stops down, and a third to 5.5 stops down, the modeling lights go to full power, 1 stop down, and 3.5 stops down, instead of -2, -3, -5.5 the way Einsteins will.

Of course, the "at any price" concept is insane, because the Scoro is a $12,000 pack (yes, I have the right number of zeros) and the cheapest heads are $1,330, so we're talking over ten times the cost: $16,000 in Broncolor vs. $1,500 in Einsteins. Personally, I prefer the Einsteins, the Scoro scares the crap out of me.

But you could so easily add the sequence mode and color temp tuning to the Einstein firmware, and the modeling light thing to either Einstein or Cyber Commander firmware (preferably Cyber Commander, so it benefits those of us who have a mix of Einstein and WL, or AB).

Make mine Einstein!

Sequencing may be possible in the near future with the plugin being developed by LPA with current Einstein, or even with AB/WL and MultiMax. Color tuning would be possible in firmware. But, like the Scoro, color at full output cannot be altered and could only occur beginning at about 1/2 power due to physics. In my opinion, this would only get fewer than 1% of users excited.

As for the modeling lamp adjustment thing, this feature is already in Einstein and CC. You just set the modeling lamps to independent mode rather than track flash.

As for Scoro, I betcha' their modeling lamps aren't voltage regulated like ours (even AB) nor can they likely be put in track flash mode and still be offset from one another so an AB1600 and AB400 can both use the same wattage modeling lamp and still produce WYSIWYG model vs flash equivalence. I would also guess our model lamp accuracy is higher and I bet you can't plug a Scoro into either 120V or 230V without changing the modeling lamp.

Oh, and I haven't seen the Broncolor equivalent of Cyber Commander . . . able to control and meter 16 lights from the palm of your hand, and to work in camera f stops rather than having to calculate WS and use an external flashmeter to balance and bracket lights . . . and where is their Vagabond Mini equivalent.

Indeed, totally different creatures. ;)