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Alien Bees gear
Anyone use alien bees lights and softboxes? As well the vagabound system theyhave... considerin buying them.. i use hensel right now but its so expensive. Jan 05 06 06:59 pm Link Aliens are made by the whiteLightning people and all their accessories work with ABs. My main and fills are whiteLs while my hair, rim, background, and other lights are Alien Bees. They're durable and travel well. Model light is short on watts but I can live with that. For a tight budget, they are the best value. Mike Jan 05 06 07:11 pm Link I just bought 4 AB-1600's w/ barndoors,, speedrings, gels, etc.,etc. I decided to buy Photoflex softboxes because they have a better variety & some deeper ones. I got a 7' octobox & a 36x48 box for the main & fill, & I use the barndoors, gels, grids, etc, for the background & hair lights... Paul Jan 05 06 07:19 pm Link I've got a White Lightning 500, two B800's, and two Vagabond converters and love all of it (plus 1 beauty dish, 2 "brollyboxes", grids from 10-to-40-deg.--just one of each, however--and an "octabox"). I very much plan on acquiring more "light modification" gear for the Bees and would not hesitate to add lamps for a specific mission. Although I haven't banged things up yet, they have been "traveled" and set up rapidly, and I'm confident as regards their reliability and (again, B800) ability to light small exteriors or introducing broader "fill" in the field than has been the case to this point. Jan 05 06 07:30 pm Link I've got a B1600 and 2 B800s, the large softbox and the vagabond....and I love all of it. I want a bigger softbox and an octabox, but no complaints at all about what I've got, and I've schleped it all over the East Coast, from parks to fields to churchyards. Jan 05 06 08:49 pm Link i've used white lightnings, and have nothing but praise. if you want portable, though, look at lumedyne. it's all i use now - studio or location. used prices are great. Jan 05 06 08:53 pm Link Morphine Dream wrote: I went with Calumet/Bowens for the build quality and use of universal speed rings. A good friend of mine has a Hensel monolight and it is a serious piece of equipment. Jan 05 06 08:56 pm Link Craig Thomson wrote: i had a bowens monolight that was destroyed from nominal impact. not saying they're bad, but i wouldn't say they are tops for durability. Jan 05 06 08:59 pm Link Christopher Bush wrote: Given at 7 1/2 lbs per head, they tend to gather speed while falling. Jan 05 06 09:02 pm Link Craig Thomson wrote: i hear you. i dropped my white lightnings AND my lumedynes with no damage. maybe it was just chance. Jan 05 06 09:14 pm Link Craig Thomson wrote: well i've got 2 hensel mono's and 2 elinchrom however i'm thinking of selling the elinchrom kit and picking up a bees vagabond and a b800 and use the rest for paying a few bills.. i like the elinchroms but the hensells are pretty kickass.. the price of the bees though is hard to resist Jan 05 06 09:31 pm Link Morphine Dream wrote: It just seems the build quality and how dead on these higher end lights are, it's just a shame to think of needing money that bad. Jan 05 06 09:37 pm Link I use AB's along with a RedWing softbox (I bought the AB adapter from them, but in retrospect I could have made one myself.) I'm fairly happy with them. My biggest complaint to date is that the slave sensors are a bit fussy. M Jan 05 06 10:18 pm Link Craig Thomson wrote: True about the accessories.. but i think for sure i'll pick up a vagabond just because i can plug my hensel mono's into it. Thats true about having to buy accessories.. should probably go hensel all the way Jan 05 06 10:32 pm Link Morphine Dream wrote: All the above mentioned, aside from their boxes.. I use Chimera...much better quality.. Jan 05 06 11:52 pm Link I just got a whole setup, haven't taken most of it out of the boxes yet. Two 800's and a 1600 with wired control and some light control knickknacks. Pretty sure the softbox is in the kit somewhere. Jan 05 06 11:56 pm Link I don't know why you would want to downgrade that much. I have nothing against AB's value-for-money proposition, but if you are used to the quality of Hensel and Elinchrom (which I highly recommend), I think you would be hard-pressed to tolerate the build-quality of the AB (again, they are not bad for the money, just not Swiss standard). On top of that, you will take such a loss selling those Elinchrom, I don't know how much money you can gain out of selling them. But if you are really selling the Elinchrom, let me know, I am thinking about adding lights anyway. On top of that, Elinchrom and Profoto are the two most supported lights on the market, in terms of accessories. AB/WL aren't in the same league. Plus you can just buy the Vagabond (basically just a pure sine wave generator) and use it with all the lights you have. Jan 06 06 01:42 am Link I bought 2-800 and 2-1600 and the Vagabound system for some remote location work. In the studio I use Profoto and Speedotron. The Profoto 7B system was just to much $ for me. The Alien Bees did the job, but if I had to do it again I'd buy a generator. To me the Alien Bees feel alittle cheap (light weight made of plastic). The sliding scale 1/4,1/2,full power, has alot of slop in the control. I found the built in slaves, not very sensitive and had to rigg them with remotes. I had ordered the Alien Bee softboxes and put them together and sent them back the same day and used my photoflex instead. I'll take them on big location jobs to use as fills and kickers, but they sit in the case most of the time. Just my 2 cents......... Jan 06 06 08:20 am Link |
