One light setup at the Strobeam Product Launch

Yesterday I went to the launch of a couple of new portable strobist lighting products from Strobeam – the DL250 and EID G5. These are fairly compact and highly portable IGBT lighting kits which are both battery powered and in the case of the G5 can also be mains powered too. Rather interestingly they are both remote controllable with the ‘3G remote’ which also acts as the hotshoe trigger for the lights (which even syncs with the Fuji x100 at an impressive 1/1000th of a second as I tried and proved yesterday) – meaning that even with a 15 light setup you can adjust the settings for each individual light from up to 100m away using this single remote… as long as you can remember which number you’ve given each light!

At the launch, Jonathan Ryan was in attendance to put these products through their paces, showing me and the other attendees what could be achieved with these lights and just a few basic modifiers, before allowing those who wanted to go hands on with the kit to do just that. The photograph above was taken using just the basic DL250 and an umbrella softbox (in the style of a Westcott Apollo).  The only problem I have with the DL250 is that it doesn’t have a standard ‘fit’ on the front meaning that you can’t easily use your stash of light shapers and modifiers (such as S-fit softboxes etc.). However, it does have a slot for an umbrella shaft, so standard brollies, and any modifiers built around an umbrella shaft such as Westcott Apollo softboxes (or similar) can be used. Only you can decide whether or not this is an issue. As Jonathan explained to me, it’s simply not possible to add an S-Fit mount to these DL250’s as you’d have to increase the size of the overall unit, and then you’d start getting some balance issues when you started adding heavy modifiers (like beauty dishes) to the front. When the overall weight of the DL250 along with the battery pack is less than 1kg then you have to understand the tradeoff between modifier compatibility and ultra portability!

Simple two light setup with the Strobeam G5

The bigger brother of the two lights is the EID G5. This light comes complete with a standard Bowens compatible S-Fit accessory mount, and was instantly more appealing to me because of this. Making full use of this, the photograph above was taken using a honeycombed beauty dish fitted to the G5 on a boom arm above the model, with a second G5 with a slightly rectangular softbox at around elbow height on the model pointing upwards to reduce the shadows caused by the beauty dish.

4 light setup at the Strobeam launch

To prove the versatility of the kit, we then moved on to a simple four light setup, employing various modifiers as key, background, rim and even ‘armpit’ lights. Again, these were all remotely controlled and set up using the ‘3G controller’ and showed (horrendously cheesy background aside) how the lights could be set up quickly and yet give professional looking results.

Aside from the quality of the light, the recycle time was extremely fast – at one point Jonathan was demonstrating the FP mode on the G5 (which sets a fixed power for a shorter flash duration – of 1/9600th if I remember correctly – for those times you want to freeze motion – by default the flash duration ain’t great if I’m honest) and he was shooting at 11fps 9fps (corrected – thanks Jonathan) on his Nikon D3s and the lights were keeping up – impressive. If you want to see what this looks like in the real world, then Jonathan has uploaded a photo showing each frame to his flickr.

So would I buy one? I’m sorely tempted, but not yet. I have my Lencarta Safari kit which still has plenty of life left in it and battery and strobe technology is constantly evolving, so I’ll see what’s on the market in a couple of years when I come round to refreshing kit. However, the portability and convenience (especially with the G5 being mains and battery operated) means that it’s an option well worth considering. If I didn’t currently have any ‘location’ flash then I’d certainly be considering it!

My thanks to Jonathan Ryan for the tuition and insight, and Sam from Strobeam for bringing along the products, as well as the models who were instrumental in showing us the effects of the light!

UPDATED @ 8:35am 13/02/2012 – corrected the frames per second that Jonathan was shooting at. Also added a little bit more on the DL250 and clarified the speed of the FP mode.