Michael Raveney wrote:
I use an older system, the 1604LV four light, I am going to upgrade soon, but so far I liked it...only had an issue with grounding, and they repaired it for free.

you're going to upgrade to another speedo pack, or a different system?

i'm not surprised they fixed it for free - they seem quite customer-friendly.  i called them up today to ask some questions about the new explorer pack, and got an engineer on the phone after only one transfer!

Christopher Bush wrote:
there's been a few lighting threads recently in which speedotron equipment got rave reviews.  i am seriously considering investing in a more expansive lighting system, and would like to know what the drawbacks are to the speedotrons.  anyone have anything bad to say about them, compared to something like the more expensive profoto?

I recently purchased an older Speedotran (black line) light kit on e-bay. It included (2) #102 lights, a 800 watt power supply (for up to 4 lights), some reflectors and a soft carring case for everything. I paid $550 including shipping.

Everything works great - buy Speedotron black line equipment not the brown line. Check out e-bay.

Other good names are Profoto and Dynalite. They are more expensive though.

Tony Lawrence wrote:
I have used both the Brown and Black.  Get profoto.  If you MUST have a
Speedo buy the Blackline.  If used do not buy from pros.  They last forever.

thanks.  it would definitely be the blackline.  can you elaborate on why the extra cost is justified for profotos?

Sean Armenta wrote:
hey christopher,

b&h is now listing that speedo battery pack (explorer) for $1800.

i saw that, but they won't have them until *maybe* next week.  only 25 units have been shipped from speedo so far, and the next batch is on the way.  i talked to a speedo engineer about some of the details, and it looks pretty good, minus some drawbacks inherent to portable systems.  more research is needed.

Christopher Bush wrote:

thanks.  it would definitely be the blackline.  can you elaborate on why the extra cost is justified for profotos?

John said it best.  Speedotron is raw power.  If money is a concern go with
the Blackline.  They last forever.  keep in mind unless you're shooting large
groups or buildings, cars and some products you really don't need lots of power.

Tony Lawrence wrote:

John said it best.  Speedotron is raw power.  If money is a concern go with
the Blackline.  They last forever.  keep in mind unless you're shooting large
groups or buildings, cars and some products you really don't need lots of power.

i agree with tony -- i am constantly trying to power down my 2400 pack.  i end up having to split the lowest output channel with a head as a dump, and still get f8 out of it LOL if i want to shoot wide open, i have to bust out the 2 and 3 stop ND's.

Christopher Bush wrote:
would like to know what the drawbacks are to the speedotrons.  anyone have anything bad to say about them, compared to something like the more expensive profoto?

Drawbacks are as noted: the power controls control the whole pack; if you need to adjust one light vs another, you'll need to turn the pack off, change sockets, and try again. They're a little heavier than the competition, but not across-the board. (Dyna-Lite is lighter, Profoto Acute is lighter; others are comparable) They are, however, VERY durable.

800-1200 Watt-seconds
800 ws
7.7 lbs Speedo 805
1000 ws
6.7 lbs Dyna-Lite M1000er
1200 ws
7.5 lbs Comet CBW 1200 
9.0 lbs  Profoto Acute2 1200R 
11 lbs  Broncolor Nano2 
12.5 lbs Norman D12 
15 lbs   Speedo 1205cx 
16.5 lbs Broncolor Verso
20 lbs   Profoto Pro-7a 1200


2000-2400 Watt-seconds
2000 ws
13 lbs Dyna-Lite M2000
29 lbs Norman 2000D
2400 ws
13 lbs Profoto Acute2 2400R
23 lbs Speedo 2405cx 
25 lbs Profoto D4 2400
27 lbs Profoto Pro7 2400
28 lbs Speedo 2403cx 



I've got 4 packs: 3@800, 1@2400, 8 normal heads, a couple of specialty ones, and one monolight. If I were to do it all over, I might have chosen a different system or mix (3 packs, 2 monolights?), but overall, I'm pretty pleased.

Arturo J wrote:
I've gone to Profotos from speedo blackline for the increased portability, more stable
color temp...especially as you power up/down and the large variety of attachments
not to mention they are the dominant brand in rental depts everywhere, years and years
ago this was not true=it was Speedo and Norman and to lesser extent Balcar. I know
this because I worked in a rental house. Speedos also do have as short a flash duration
as profoto or especially balcar. This can suck if you need to stop action in Fashion or
commercial shoots at HIGH power. They make the 4 tube heads because of this.

Now to be honest, Speedo is every bit as reliable
as Profoto and in the case of the 2403CX pack at least as bullet proof. Sure it's a bit clunky
but damn, you'll never wear it out. I had a 2403cx which is so versatile for a single pack. The 2401 does not have this ability to power down
so much.
in terms of power range and a few 1205's for portability. Go with the 205VF heads, forget
the older style ones...and pop for the UV tubes. If you can handle the extra bulk, you cannot
go wrong with Blackline plus the head accessories are much less money.

thanks for the great response.  which profoto pack did you buy?

Natalie Photography wrote:
I didnt turn off the pac and proceeded to pull a head out of the pack. It sent me flying across the room. I felt like the world was moving in slow motion for about 2 days. Before removing heads, turn off the power.

AND, press the test button on the power supply to discharge the capacitors.

To the OP: Go for it! The power supplies, are big, black, and heavy. If nothing else, you LOOK like you know what you are doing.

Natalie Photography wrote:
I didnt turn off the pac and proceeded to pull a head out of the pack. It sent me flying across the room. I felt like the world was moving in slow motion for about 2 days. Before removing heads, turn off the power.

With this brand you have to discharge the pack while turning it off. Otherwise, it'll still hold the charge.

Christopher Bush wrote:

thanks for the great response.  which profoto pack did you buy?

Chris,
You're welcome.
I bought 2 ea Acute 2 1200 and 2400, and I'm going to get another Acute 2R(Remote)
pack soon. 9 heads including the ringflash, and a few reflectors. I bought 7" round grid
reflectors which let me keep both my speedo 7" grids and the  special Grey Balcar
grids I use most of the time. Profoto grids are quite pricey but nice. Also, I found
that I could use my tons of speedo 7" gel holders too but they leak light at the edges
and now I also use a product called a gel-key, it's adjustable to different size reflectors
and is spring-loaded so you can use pre-cut 12x12 gels as-is. Like I said, working at
the rental house while starting out gave me lots of exposure to different gear and
of course the pros coming in were a great source of info, ideas and advice.

Christopher Bush wrote:
there's been a few lighting threads recently in which speedotron equipment got rave reviews.  i am seriously considering investing in a more expansive lighting system, and would like to know what the drawbacks are to the speedotrons.  anyone have anything bad to say about them, compared to something like the more expensive profoto?

I've used Speedos myself and they're great units, extremely durable and extremely fast recycle time (if you're using Blackline) and they have a large selection of light modifiers though perhaps not as large as Profoto.

The only drawbacks I can think of are:
- none of their packs allow you to fine tune the power to each individual head, pretty much the only packs I know that do this are the Profoto D series
- as previously mentioned they don't have very consistent color accuracy when dialing up and dialing down, which may be an issue for you if you're shooting chrome... supposedly Broncolor packs have the highest color accuracy from max to min power
- Speedotron is one of the older names in lighting equipment so their packs have certain quirks which you need to be aware of:
        - make sure you dump the capacitors prior to turning the pack off or prior to unplugging a power head cable, otherwise you're in for a rude surprise
        - Speedo packs have a very high sync trigger voltage, approximately 300 volts, so if you're going to hook up your camera via sync cable be aware that you can damage the electronics of your camera unless you use a filter such as the Wein SafeSync that will regulate the trigger voltage down to around 7 volts... you can use Pocket Wizards to be safe on the camera end but the receiver end will still be getting that 300V burst on each pop
        - Speedo and Norman packs use positive as the chassis ground and negative as the hot, this is the American standard, which is the opposite of the European and Japanese standard, namely chassis ground=negative and hot=positive (both Canon and Nikon follow the standard of frame ground = negative), if you use Pocket Wizards this isn't a big problem, however if you hook up your camera via a sync cable you can literally pass the 300V trigger voltage across your body if you should accidentally be touching the camera and the outside of the power pack (or even a light stand, if you have a head already connected) at the same time... the safe thing to do is reverse the polarity by turning the sync plug around, you can verify that both your camera and the power pack chassis are at zero potential by touching the outside of the hot shoe on your camera to the outside of the power pack--if the pack doesn't fire you're okay, but if it pops you've still got the hot lead passing thru the frame ground

Arturo J wrote:

Chris,
You're welcome.
I bought 2 ea Acute 2 1200 and 2400, and I'm going to get another Acute 2R(Remote)
pack soon. 9 heads including the ringflash, and a few reflectors. I bought 7" round grid
reflectors which let me keep both my speedo 7" grids and the  special Grey Balcar
grids I use most of the time. Profoto grids are quite pricey but nice. Also, I found
that I could use my tons of speedo 7" gel holders too but they leak light at the edges
and now I also use a product called a gel-key, it's adjustable to different size reflectors
and is spring-loaded so you can use pre-cut 12x12 gels as-is. Like I said, working at
the rental house while starting out gave me lots of exposure to different gear and
of course the pros coming in were a great source of info, ideas and advice.

i'm glad to hear you say that, because i can't afford the d or 7 series.  my goal is to buy once and never look back, so the color temp issues with the speedos may be a problem.  i plan to rent an acute 2400 for my next test shoot to see how we get along.

Select Models wrote:
nothing other than replacing half a dozen flashtubes... they seem to last quite a long time too... unless one of your heads hits the floor...

What were the symptoms when the flashtubes failed?  I had my 812 pack smoke a while after it seemed like a loud "crack" came from one head.  After having it repaired and using it for several 200-300 image shoots I had a "crack" and failure with another head attatched.  Is this a sign of flashtube failure or deeper problems?

Thanks for any info

Gerry

Marc Salas wrote:
Swimming upstream in the face of the "only buy Blackline" current, I'll tell you that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the Brownline (amateur) series.  The packs go up to 1600 watt/seconds and the bigger heads can take all 1600 watt/seconds, but you can split the power 4 ways and there are different ratios attained by choosing which ports to use.

The sturdier heads (I forget the model no.) have removable reflectors (with other sizes available) and it's easy to find speed rings to allow the use of softboxes.  The older Blackline reflectors are the same mount as the Brownline (although a black reflector on a brown head looks cheesy).

If you're shooting a model in a small space (apartment or makeshift studio in your garage), 1600 watt/seconds is huge.  If you're shooting cars in a big open space, then you'll be glad you have that power (and you'll need more).

The brownline heads you're thinking of are the M11.  They are basically the same as the blackline 103 head, and will take all the same accessories.

I'm hoping you're right.  I just bought a brownline 1200 w/s pack and two M11 heads off ebay for about $250.  Should be much more power than I need, and I'll probably be using it at the 1/4 setting most of the time. 

Waiting for the package to arrive.