Alien Bees - What color to choose ?

I'm the type of guy that before I make a major purchase, I bug the heck out of everybody around me. I was looking at

these Alien Bees flash heads and noticed that they come in different colors. The reason why I'm focusing on the ABs

is that they are light, powerful enough(for my needs), portable, affordable and fit into my workflow, well my planned

workflow anyway.

 

Colors can have a major impact on a client, believe it or not. I'm thinking a neutral color such as Black or White,

because they look more Professional and wont raise any eyebrows. However, kids might like the other crazy colors.

 

Right now I don't know where I'm gonna get the money, but I was looking at the Busy Bee Package

http://www.alienbees.com/busy.html and maybe add a portable Power pack http://www.alienbees.com/battery.html

and I'll be set.

 

Right now, I'm not sure if B800's are overkill, since I plan to do mostly Location Portraits and my so-called studio(my

living room) is not that big, about 15X20 ?

Going all black is the safest route. However, in one of the past Lightsource podcasts, the guest photographer they were interviewing said that he had all different color alien bees, just because it was easier to identify them by color when working with clients. "Stand a little closer to the green flash" is pretty unambiguous if there is only one green flash, and it's not like the average portrait client is going to know what a key light is.

I bought my ABs in different colors depending upon the wattage; the 400s are white, the 800s are black, the 1600 is yellow. Makes it easy for me to tell which wattage head is where.

 

<Chas>

"I bought my ABs in different colors depending upon the wattage; the 400s are white, the 800s are black, the 1600 is yellow. Makes it easy for me to tell which wattage head is where. "

 

OOH! great idea!

I am going to be buying some AB's in the near future, and was planning on the same concept as John indicated, having one color for the main, one for the fill, and so on. Plus, I think the colors are fun and might offer up some icebreaking conversation with nervous clients.

I got black, but I llike Ellis's idea.

It was Charles Webster's idea, not mine. He deserves all the credit.

"the 400s are white, the 800s are black, the 1600 is yellow."

 

I'm guessing that maybe you only need one 1600 and a couple of 800s and 400s ?

I like the different colors for wattage, but I am part o the Raider Nation so I would have to go black.

Harry, my studio work is mostly small objects in my home studio. So I don't need much power. I got the 1600 because I was working with a lighting technique called "black bounce" lighting still life shots with a strobe bounced off a piece of black velvet. It eats up a ton of light, and for me didn't produce the desired results.

 

<Chas>

Get out of my head. I did the same thing a few years ago when I bought my ABs. My config is: Yellow for 400s and Green for 800s. Don't have any

1600's as my studio is small and almost never have the 800's on full power.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are bouncing light out of an umbrella, a funky color -might- get picked up and color the light. I had a chance to buy a pair of pink B1600 but decided not to. Since I mostly only photo trains outdoors at night, I didn't want to risk getting teased by train crews.

 

 

Kent in SD