Need more powerful strobe

[marcsaint]

<p>I need a more powerful strobe. I'm currently using Nikon SB-800's and I'm just not getting the power/recycle time I want. I'm shooting with a D300 and I'm not ready to get a better camera with higher ISO capabilities -- it works just fine in daylight but interiors with high ceilings are killing me. I would appreciate any suggestions on what strobes you use/like/recommend for more power + faster recycle time than than the SB-800. Thanks!</p>

[marcsaint]

<p>Sorry, I should have been more specific....<br>

This is for shooting weddings almost exclusively (hence the posting in this forum). It would be mounted on a bracket and I would be shooting no higher than ISO 800. Thanks again.</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>Are you using the 5th battery option? If not, get one! If you are, there's not much available that's going to recycle faster.</p>

<p>The better solution for receptions is not a more powerful single flash. It's multiple flashes. What you should do is get a set of triggers and put at least 2 more flashes or strobes on lightstands with triggers. You can put them all on 1/2 power and light up the entire room with nearly instant recycling (due to the lower output). So you need more power but used more efficiently.</p>

<p>You could add 2 more slave flashes shot manually that are fairly cheap or go to something like an Alien Bee light that will have no issues with most rooms.</p>

<p>Here's an example of using 3 strobes at 1/2 power. You get nice balanced light across the room with great flexibility because with the wireless triggers, you can wander around anywhere and get good light on the subjects. No more dark corners and harsh shadows.</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>2 off camera wireless strobes and one on camera flash all at half power. This room was dark with only dimmed wall sconces to light parts of it and no ceiling lights at all.</p><div></div>

[picturesque]

<p>1. What f stop do you normally use?</p>

<p>2. Are you only using on camera bounced flash? NO off camera flashes?</p>

<p>3. If you are using off camera flashes, what are they?</p>

[marcsaint]

 

<p>"1. What f stop do you normally use?"<br>

Indoors, f/4.5-5.6 (i.e.nearly wide open); outdoors f/8-f/11 (FWIW)<br>

"2. Are you only using on camera bounced flash? NO off camera flashes?"<br>

90% of the time I use on-camera flash, preferably bounced off ceiling or wall. High ceilings are tough -- recently shot wedding with high ceiling, black walls, black tablecloths, black shirts on groomsmen, and colored spotlights for lighting. Aaaargh! <br>

"3. If you are using off camera flashes, what are they?"<br>

About 10% of the time I'll set up my two SB800s on lightstands and use my on-camera flash to trigger them. Have had mixed results. I work alone so I often have to wait for subjects to position themselves rather than move the lights to get the best effect.</p>

 

[daverhaas]

<p>Marc - </p>

<p>If recycle time is the problem, I'd suggest a Quantum or comparable battery pack. Calumet makes and sells one under their own brand name that is about 1/2 the cost of the Quantum and is a good performer. </p>

<p>I'd suggest getting a copy of "The Hotshoe Diaries" and reading it. Covers a ton of stuff about using nothing more than what you are currently using and getting great lit shots. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[picturesque]

<p>OK then. I agree with Peter above--you aren't going to get much better recycling or more 'power' without getting into the mid level, manual flashes. Flashes that work with Nikon i-TTL that have appreciably more power turn out not to be that much more power.</p>

<p>Most top of the line manufacturer shoemounts are around 80-100 watt seconds. You could get Quantum Q flashes that work with i-TTL, but they aren't that much more powerful. Plus, the reflector (parabolic) will make a difference. Sometimes the shoemount will equal the power, because it has a focus-able head, and the Q flashes don't--they just have two positions. Generally speaking, you'd have a 2/3 stop gain. Recycling would only be 'better' with an external battery. However, Q flashes don't suffer from thermal overheating in quite the same way as shoemounts.</p>

<p>You could get Metz Digitals (76, I think). However, the gain is probably about the same--2/3 stop, and Metz recycling has always been slow, even with their own powerpacks. I own several Metz flashes.</p>

<p>In situations where the ceilings are high, but light or white, I'd be using monolights--couple of 800 watt second Alien Bees or something--or mid level flashes such as Lumedynes--about 400 watt seconds and more--to bounce off ceilings off camera, and use the on camera flash cut way back.</p>

<p>You should also be using the zoom function on your shoemount to get to high ceilings better. You can manually zoom the flash to telephoto settings to get that spot of light up there. If the ceilings are mid value and dark, nothing is really going to help, except perhaps a 1600 watt second monolight AND high ISO, which you say you don't want to do.</p>

<p>There really isn't an ideal answer for you--f4.5/5.6 isn't exactly wide, ISO 800 isn't exactly high. I've shot in situations with black everything, and you really can't win. You either have to go high ISO, very powerful monolight(s), or multiple flashes, used direct, as accent and separation lights.</p>

<p>If you place the lights well, you do not have to wait for subjects to position themselves. I also work alone, and don't have much trouble with off camera lights--placing and managing.</p>

<p> </p>

[Jerry_]

<p>One suggestion: try a few practice images with your D300 in 'S' mode and not using the ceiling for a bounce effect. If you have a flash bracket, and a shutter speed of 1/80th a second, the Nikon SB-800 will do more blending in with the existing room light. (If you have a ceiling that is not white, you chance the effects non-white colors in your images.) Trying to get a SB-800 burst of light up to a ceiling and have a 'fast' recycle time is not going to happen after 30 or 40 shots at a wedding.</p>

<p> </p>

[ricardovaste]

Peter, I can't imagine using flash during the speeches, what an awfully lit room! I feel your pain.

[craig_shearman1]

<p>In addiition to the Quantum Turbo, Lumedyne makes a similar battery that works with Nikon/Canon/Vivitar etc. shoemount flashes, not just the Lumedyne heads. With either the Turbo or the Lumedyne, recycling is maybe 1 second on a full-power manual pop and virtually instant on most automatic settings. As for cost, you can get re-celled used Turbos on ebay for around $125 from independent sellers. And if you have, or can buy, a used Turbo cheap, Quantum will re-cell it for about that price. I have a Turbo that was probably 25 years old and completely dead and Quantum made it like-new, replacing not only the cells but some of the circuitry and connectors.<br />I would not bother trying to bounce off high ceilings with a shoemount flash. There are many diffusers you can use, plus small umbrellas or soft boxes, etc., that are much more efficient. </p>

[ed_farmer]

<p>There are many choices as others have already posted . . . But, you need to get into manual off-camera flash. TTL is great for on-camera but when you get crossing lights any TTL system is going to get confused and your exposures can vary by a wide margin.<br>

I use two Qflashes fired with FreeWire triggers. They are usually set to 1/8 or 1/4 (at the most) power and I shoot at f5.6 ISO 400. Recycle time with the QFlashes at that power is much instant.<br>

I use the QFlashes because I already own them. You can find Sunpak "potato masher" units new or on the used market for much less money. These can run on AA or external batteries, or you can get an AC cable. <br>

The FreeWire units are expensive but work flawlessly as do most other systems. There are very inexpensive radios but I can't vouch for the quality. <br /><br />I very much doubt that you are going to to get the quality that you are looking for without going off-camera.</p>

[john_deerfield]

<p>In terms of faster recycle times, that is easy: get any of the external battery packs already suggested. I do know that the Quantum cable works with both the SB800 and the SB900. With the Nikon AA battery packs, the SB800 version doesn't work with the SB900 version (should you ever upgrade your flash units). </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>It would be mounted on a bracket and I would be shooting no higher than ISO 800. Thanks again.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Are you saying a camera flash bracket? If you are only using an on camera flash (on a bracket), you don't really have too many (if any) options. It isn't always possible to bounce off a high ceiling. I had an Alien Bee 1600 (640ws) on a 13' light stand and that wasn't giving me anything to speak of bouncing off a 50' ceiling. So I used it direct and placed some shoe mount flashes elsewhere bouncing off walls (this was at a reception). If all I had was on an camera flash (bracket or not), there would not have been any bouncing, it would have been direct flash. I might suggest taking a step back and defining what you don't like about your lighting and then learning how to get what you want. And that is going to mean you need more gear. As example, dark room, high ceilings (no bounce possible) and you want to shoot at ISO 800 (which takes one method of controlling contrast out of the equation). Well, if you can't bounce, you can't bounce, that leaves you with direct flash. Direct flash <em>looks</em> like direct flash when you can see the fall off. The only way to not see the fall off is to have another light source illuminating the background. Now this doesn't completely get rid of the direct flash look. The only way to do that is to get the flash off the camera. So another approach might be to use an off camera strobe as a main light (even if it's direct) and then use an on camera flash to control the contrast (you can have hard light and low contrast). Regardless of the look <em>you</em> are trying to achieve, you will need more than one light on a camera bracket.</p>

[marcsaint]

<p>Thank you very much for all your responses -- you folks are the greatest!<br>

I'm going to re-evaluate my lighting needs for big groups/big rooms and decide how I will handle those situations -- lights on stands, reflectors, etc. I really prefer to travel light and the thought of setting up lightstands with big strobes gives me the willies (people tripping on them, children knocking them over, troubleshooting problems instead of shooting pix, etc). I know some of you do this all the time, and I've done it on occasion, but I really enjoy running and gunning more than setup and teardown.<br>

In the short term I'm going to invest in a battery pack to reduce recycle time and get the maximum power with the strobe I'm using. I'm also going to stop using the i-TTL for formals and switch to MAN flash exposure and either using a flashmeter or chimping the histogram. I'll see how this works out and go from there.<br>

<br />Once again, thank you all for your insightful suggestions.</p>

[fotografz]

<p>Marc, I don't think you should have to change your spontaneous style ... there are other methods that can mitigate your issues.</p>

<p>While I own excellent strobe solutions that could light up any reception hall to almost any degree desired no matter how high the ceilings are, (like a Hensel Porty 1200w/s Lithum with Magnum reflector which is 10X the output of the average speed-light and recycles faster), I usually do not use them at the reception unless I have an assistant with me to handle the lighting ... maybe it is just me, but that's the way it is. I also try to not shoot over ISO 1000 with any camera because of the awful color and dynamic range. </p>

<p>My solution, is fairly simple and not that expensive. I use two speed-lights, one on-camera mounted to a Stratos-II transmitter that features pass through TTL, and another light mounted on a receiver set to manual.</p>

<p>The two basic methods of use: ... place the second speed-light on a Lowel Handle Grip and use it as the directional light in my left hand while the on-camera speed-light provides TTL fill ... which avoids the direct flash look. A hand strap on the camera makes this possible.</p>

<p>The other method is to either place the 2nd light where ever you want ...like the example below where I placed the 2nd light on the floor behind the Bridal table to 1) kill any shadows and brighten the ugly wall in a dark room, and 2) back-light the couple while the TTL on-camera provided front fill.</p>

<p>Since you should already have a second speed-light, the cost of trying this would be less than $200 total ... then go from there.</p>

<p>In the end, mono-lights are the more effective and efficient method of lighting all around and can be used for a myriad of applications, on the other hand they do require lugging and set-up. </p>

<div></div>

[fotografz]

<p>Here are a couple of other uses from the above description of gear used ... for more "run and gun" approaches I prefer. </p>

<p>The B&W shot of the Groomesmen conspiring to pull a prank was the 2nd light on the Lowel grip handle and spontaneously placed in low for creative effect.</p>

<p>The second shot was in VERY dark conditions during the dancing ... I placed the 2nd light on the Bridal Table aimed right into the dance floor and the on-camera TTL did the rest.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>