Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Please check this product release from Rob Galbraith. He asked for an exclusive so I gave it to him. Info will be on our website sometime next week,

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/conten ... 0050-10630

Very ... Very .... Cool.

Heh... April Fool's Day was a few weeks ago... you really expect us to fall for this?

;)

Nice work.

Retro Laser is shipping from China this Friday by air so should be on our site and for sale with no backlog, within three weeks. Sorry Elinchrom users - the recessed flashtube and sub reflector don't allow satisfactory focusing of Retro Laser - see update on Rob Galbraith's blog. April Fool's and showers brings May flowers. :D

And the little bendy-arm-boom-bracket-thingy :) ?

Does the Australian stock go China-Australia or China-USA-Australia ??

Thanks,

AB.

At this point it goes China-US-AU. AU sales aren't big enough to ship bulk from China. We have to assemble parts and print manuals, etc before it goes to AU.

Also - refresh Rob Galbraith page - Elinchrom's recessed flashtube and sub reflector is degrading Retro Laser's performance too much so Eli mount won't be offered at this point.

If I'm shooting, say, ISO 400 at f/8 with a WL1600 with the 11LTR (the new 11" sport reflector), what will this do for me?

(I shoot equine sports, and eventually will be getting some Einsteins, and so indoors would like to be able to drop the power, keeping the same camera settings for faster duration, or when shooting outdoors, be able to shoot at full power, and overpower the daylight, at least during dawn or dusk.)

Retro Laser will give you one to two f stops more light than 11" LTR depending on how tightly your focus it. Going from AB400 to Einstein 640 will add two more f stops. This will allow you to drop the Einstein power to get really fast action freezing. Half power in Action Mode will really freeze action, with 1/2000 second t.1 and provide lots of light.

I own and use regularly, 3 speedlights, and I'm admittedly a novice because I have never used a studio strobe. I'm in line to get an Einstein and will likely get another 1 or 2 eventually.

One style of strobe-based photography I was hoping to do after I get my Einstein, is the "focused beam of light" portraits I've seen others create with a 7" reflector and some 10 degree or 20 degree grids, that results in the subject standing in what looks like a focused beam. It seems that the Retro Laser Reflector would serve that exact same purpose with more power and could be set to create a cone of light anywhere from 11 degrees to 30 degrees. Am I understanding this correctly?

LrryBkr,
Sort of. Both will give you a narrow beam of light, but there are some differences. If the light's distance from the subject is the same, and the angle of coverage is the same (we will use 10 degrees for example) the light coverage will be 15" wider than the 7". This is because the Retro Laser starts at 15" more broad than the 7". Close in, there is a big difference. At a 5' distnce, the 10d 7" reflector will give a beam spread of about 12", the Retro Laser (if it could be set to 10d) would give you a spread of 27". It will still be a harsher light than a softbox, but it will not have the same selective lighting effect for portraits as the smaller gridded reflectors. Each modifier has its place, and one modifier can't do it all.