Location Flash and power

Photogbiker

Need a few suggestions for using my flash and/or monolights on location (outdoors). I have a D20 with a 420 EX flash, a few Vivitar flashes and a couple 600WS-1000WS monolights. I like to do outdoor portraits and need some suggestions for power. Any relatively inexpensive suggestions for 120v power packs for the monolights that would give me at least one session on a charge? What is a good battery pack for the Canon 420EX so I don't burn through AA's like M&M's (belt type for on location and sports photog)?

Thanks,

ziggy53

Outdoor (environmental) portraiture generally requires that you:

Overpower the ambient light if you want the incident light to be dominant.
Control the ambient light using FP/HSS mode.
Use the flash as fill and the ambient light as primary.
Use a combination of reflectors and/or flash in conjunction with ambient.

Each can require different technique and strategies and equipment.

Portable battery power for AC powered monolights can get expensive quickly, depending on the scale of the project/session. The AlienBees Vagabond system is fairly reasonable but may not provide too many pops if you want to use the monolights as primary/key lights and need to overpower bright sunlight. The number of exposures will be influenced by the power consumption. (At any rate you will not be able to use the modeling lights.)

Some photographers use dual Canon 580EX flashes and an external battery supply/pack to provide enough power for outdoor use in a portable configuration.

Whatever you do, do not try to use cheap modified sine wave inverters. At best they will not work. At worst they will burn up the power supply in the monolights. Use only "true" sine wave or "pure" sine wave converters if you must. (Yes, the Vagabond units produce a "pure" sine wave output and are safe for all AC powered equipment up to the limits of power handling.)

Shane422

JTL Mobilight
Check out the JTL Mobilight as well. Its not too pricey and I have heard good things about them.

Photogbiker

Shane422 wrote:

Check out the JTL Mobilight as well. Its not too pricey and I have heard good things about them.

Thanks for the info. I have a 420EX now and ordered a battery pack so I can quit reducing the world supply of AA batteries. I think I'll go for something like the JTL with the battery pack and keep my big mono-lights studio bound with AC cords. A single Mobil lite with a camera mounted 420EX for fill and maybe a reflector would do everything I need for location portraits.

Thanks again for the leads.