Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Hi,

I would like to use flash for a Wet plate collodion process. This emmulsion has very low sensitivity (~4 ISO) and is orthochromatic (only sensitive to blue-UV side of spectrum), so i need at least 5000Ws. My first thought was to use a pair Zeus flash units (2xheads + 2xpacks), but the tubes are UV coated so I am having some doubts if that would be enough.

So the questions are:
1. Is Zeus a good choice for such scenario? Any other suggestions?
2. Are there any flash-tubes without the UV coating, or any way to safely remove it?
3. Does any body know how much energy is "lost" with the UV coating?

Thanks!

The UV coatings do a pretty good job at eliminating the UV emmisions, however, the ZRM tubes are not UV coated (or are weakly coated) and teh ZRMs are the same price as the standard heads. Zeus will be the least expensive per Ws light system we offer, and about the same as 4-X3200's.

Thank You for the reply. Do you by any chance have a more detailed specification of UV coatings, e.g. which part of spectrum do they affect (a chart with wavelength/power would be great)?

Sorry, we do not have that detailed information.