Dual purpose strobe for sports/portraits?

widash

I am in the market for a strobe that can operate from a battery pack or electrical outlet.

I'm primarily interested in short flash duration and fast recycle time, as I shoot a lot of HS ice hockey games and will also be doing indoor swim meets. It also would be used for group and individual potraits.

I know some of the Elinchrom and Speedotrons are geared toward this, but am hoping there are some more cost effective alternatives I don't know about.

Also am considering the Calumet Travelite 750ws kit.

Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks,
Bill

pathfinder

Will the owners allow 110V flash units anywhere near a swimming pool?.....

Scott_Quier

Let me be the first to welcome you to the fray! You're gonna love it here!

Let's see .... "cost effective" and "lighting" - isn't that something like a real, honest to gosh, oxymoron?

Take a look at Alien Bee lights (link). Their lights are not expensive and they offer the option of battery packs for mobile work.

I'm with PF though - I would be real interested in learning how you convince management/safety folks at a pool to allow 110V equipment anywhere near the pool. I would think the fear of electrocution hazard to be enough to push them into fits of laughter.

BTW - I sure hope your liability insurance is up to date.

claudermilk

Welcome to the forum.

I have a Calumet Travelite setup on long-term loan (the 2-head 1500 set, so a pair of 750s). They are quite nice overall, though I don't care for the offset stand mounts. As far as I can tell these are meant for plugging into an electrical outlet only, not for power packs.

widash

PF and Scott,
While I have not shot a swim meet in over 30 years (and that was with a bare bulb flash), here's where I got the idea.
http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/0402.htm



Chris, here are the two Calumet kits I was looking at that included the Travel-Pak battery:
http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/CE1450K1
http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/CE1470K1


Thanks,
Bill

Shane422

I think your man Dave Black is using strobist approaches to lighting his scenes. By that I mean hot shoe strobes off camera.

HiSPL

Those are not shoe flashes. They are specificaly designed to throw long distances, recycle quickly, and have a very short duration. These are used at almost all major sporting events, and are almost always mounted in the catwalks 50 to 70 feet away from the action. While I have never used these strobes before, I have tripped over them on numerous occasions in my part time job as a rigger. To my recollection, there was never a battery pack present because there is generally power to be found in the catwalk.

pathfinder

I can certainly see why you are interested - the use of flash REALLY sets his images apart - They look very nice indeed.

If you can mount your hardware permanently or securely to a catwalk, like he has, then management may not be concerned re electrical risks.

Battery powered speedlites would probably be easier to sell to management I bet, ala Stobist.

Like the Strobist, good flash can really up the quality of your images. Good luck, let us know how this works out. I am sure there are a lot of readers who will be similarly interested.

jdryan3

I'm not sure about the setup where you are, but our arena actually has them permanently mounted. Just get a PW II, and find out the channel, and off you go.