Tony Pringle – Lit with the Strobeam DL250, in the middle of a campsite!

As I also like to indulge in landscape photography, I always make a point of heading out to Keswick at least once a year to meet up with some fellow photographers for a weekend of banter and photography. A part of the weekend is the traditional portrait shoot… and as I’d just managed to get hold of a Strobeam DL250 two light portable studio kit I thought I’d take it along with me and see what the other guys thought of it. Read on!

The Strobeam DL250 kit I took along with me came with two heads, a battery pack and a 3G (meaning 3GHz) wireless remote – the complete details of the kit are on the Strobeam Website.

I quickly set the kit up, one head with an umbrella style octabox and one head bare (I say quickly, but there’s nothing about this kit that makes it time consuming or difficult to get ready) and handed over the remote trigger to my good friend Justin Thompson and let him have a play around. Justin is an extremely talented wedding and portrait photographer based around the Manchester region. His website is at http://www.justint.co.uk. The images below are what he managed to come up with after about 30 seconds training on the remote. These images are copyright Justin Thompson and must not be reproduced without his permission.

Paddy Donnelly lit with the Strobeam DL250 – Image copyright Justin Thompson

To begin with, Justin used a single Strobeam DL250 head to light Paddy. The light was positioned to the right of camera, and was fitted with an 80cm umbrella octabox without front diffuser.

Paddy Donnelly lit with the Strobeam DL250 – Image copyright Justin Thompson

From there, we introduced the second light, behind and to the left of Paddy. Using the 3G remote, Justin was able to adjust the power of the flash remotely, without having to disengage the rapport he was building with Paddy.

Tony Pringle lit with the Strobeam DL250 – Image copyright Justin Thompson

For this final shot, we changed location and changed model, using one Strobeam DL250 head to light the front of Tony, and one hiding behind the tree just to throw a little more light on the ground to the left of the scene.

Here’s what Justin had to say about the Strobeam DL250 kit

Justin Thompson

Photographer / Justin Thompson Photography

Having mainly used speed-lights prior to using the strobeam kit (even using them in the studio on occasion), I was incredibly surprised at how easy to use everything was – and how insanely quickly they recycle! On a few occasions it meant the difference between catching the shot I needed and catching a near miss, which as any studio photographer should know, is a fantastic commodity. I found the kit to be incredibly sturdy and well built, but still light enough to carry round without much hassle. In short, it works amazingly well, and doesn’t cost the earth, or weigh the earth either. A great piece of kit.

As you can see from Justin’s images above, it’s very possible to get pro-quality studio lighting, in the middle of a campsite with no power sockets in the near vicinity – a really useful addition to the camera bag!