AC Powered Flashes/Strobes

[grimm]

My company is working on a museum project that is setting up one of those photo booths that you sit in,take a photo and then it chromo-keys your photo onto some digital backdrops. They are using a canon camera, and currently have 3 580exii's. They don't want to rely on battery power. We've looked into some of those 700 shot flash power supplies, and ones that plug into a charger etc etc. I've also suggested these (http://www.webphotosupply.com/flash.htm). Anyone have any knowledge on the subject? I'll be heading to NYC tomorrow to go to some photography lighting store.

[grimm]

Well i went to dynalite in union NJ. they manufacture AC powered strobes and power supplies. I must say it was cool. Got to play around in there studio working on getting the shot we were looking for. Ended up with a 3 strobe set up. 2 Twinkle mono lights to light the background, and a 580exii with a diffuser for the front/face light. Just gotta research how we are going to keep the 580 powered. since this is for an install having AC power would be beneficial.

[sisforsurfing]

I'm sorry I can't help with external power for the 580ex, but just out of curiosity how do you have the 2 background lights set up? Are they both pointing at the background or is one a rim/hair light? Sounds like you're having fun.

[grimm]

Both rear strobes are to even out the lighting behind the person. we were looking at a rear light for the head and experimented with it, but since the background gets chromo-keyed out, the rear lighting would not always make for a clean image on certain backgrounds. there would be some artifcating.

Yes this i one of those fun challenges. The booth was not designed with the proper distances between lens and subject, and subject to backdrop in mind. and then finding a way to mount these strobes in a tiny room out of reach of pedestrians adds to the challenge. getting good even lighting is just the beginning of the process.

We are also looking into a bunch of bogen's lighting mounts, 2 magic arms, with 2 super clamps. for the rear strobes and then the 580 sits on the camera, the next tests will be how well the 580 works when they put a panel with a hole cut out for the flash, in front of it.

[i like rice]

What type of budget?

Alien Bee set ups are generally 10-15% less than Elinchrom or any of the other popular strobes.

I use the Alien Bee B800, which are rated at 320ws (about 4 times the rating of 580EXs). They can be found used for $200-220. I think they're about $280-300 new. They also have B400, B1600, etc.. depending on how much juice you need.

[grimm]

well to be honest we aren't really to worried about the budget. We are going to be purchasing the Twinkle Light System (http://www.dynalite.com/pkgs.shtml). but we won't be using the umbrellas. The main reason for going with the 580exii for the front strobe is that they made a graphic panel that goes in front of the camera and it was designed around the camera and stock shoe mount flash location, and have specific holes cut for both the lens and the flash. We experimented with another twinkle light for the front strobe, but it wouldn't fit with the current panel design.

[sisforsurfing]

Both rear strobes are to even out the lighting behind the person. we were looking at a rear light for the head and experimented with it, but since the background gets chromo-keyed out, the rear lighting would not always make for a clean image on certain backgrounds. there would be some artifcating.

Word, makes sense.

That really sounds like a fun job to work creatively. Be sure to post pictures when you're all done if you're allowed.

[grimm]

I will def post up some when i get some, i think they are installing the new gear tomorrow.

[grimm]

Well i haven't gotten any digital copies of the photos from the strobes, but the print out looks pretty good.

After installing the new gear we still ran into the power problem on the 580exII. They really wanted it to be not battery powered. So after looking at some other products we made our own AC powered power supply for the 580exII.

We based our power supply off of this:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/387617.jpg

And took 4 bolts, tapered their ends to hit the connections inside the flash head battery compartment, then wired the bolts in series. This then went to a terminal block where we had a 9V power supply plugged into the wall. (Granted a 6V would have been perfect since each battery supplies 1.5v x 4 = 6v) in either case, this puppy worked and is installed on site. I imagine using something like this would void a warranty, but it gave the client what they wanted, and it's worked perfectly so far.

maybe this will come in handy for some one looking for a cheap permanent power supply. parts we used came to about a total of $15. (9v power supply being the most exspensive)