Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Quick question: how is the power adjusted (manually) on Einstein? I see two up/down buttons. Does one need to click multiple times to adjust the power? The specs say the adjustment is done in 1/10th of a stop increments, if so that would involve hell lot of button pressing.

Personally I find analog dials/sliders much friendlier user interface.

One click = 1/10f. Holding either button in scrolls up or down at a nice controllable pace . . . same as Elinchrom. Except Einstein uses tact switches instead of mushy membrane switches, so you can go click click click click and know you've moved 4/10f.

Thanks for the response, Paul. I think a nicely weighted dial would rock, but a tactile switch surely sounds better than some mushy membrane button.

I hate those mushy membrane switches. A dial (unless it is a fly-by-wire one with a scale simulated on display) would be problematic as any fixed scale would rule out controlling the power wireless in a logically clean way.

I would assume it would be "fly-by-wire" with a digital readout, not a fixed one. Still given degree of rotation would be responsible for fixed range of power adjustment, so one could adjust it nearly by "feel". Say, 90 degrees = 1 stop, or whatever would make sense (could be customizable as well).

I have many competitive flash units that I use for performance/ergonomic comparison. With the Elinchrom RX600 and D Lites the membrane switches have essentially no tactical feel and you have to press hard enough that it takes one hand to hold the flash and the other to push the button. Because of the lack of tact, one must look at the display while changing power to know how much change has occurred. With Einstein a quick and fast click-click-click-click-click assures you 5/10f of power change has occurred. If you want a major power change of several f stops you can hold the button in and let it scroll (for this, you do have to watch the display).

Einstein dumps power about 4 times as fast and the frosted dome is a joy, especially when using highly focused reflectors. By comparison, RX600 produces a spiderweb of hot spots and pattern irregularities from both the modeling lamp and flash.

Do you have any comparison shots with their 28degree reflector and yours?

Boy do I ever. The Elinchrom 29° reflector absolutely sucks, IMHO. It projects an image of the flashtube, with a very dark center and a gap at the bottom. Our 11" Long Throw puts out more light with a nice even pattern.

But there is something being built right now that puts out about 2f more light and is focusable. More info and test shots soon.

PLM V2? :-)

No, smaller and metal.