Thursday, July 26, 2012

OK. OK. It sputters and starts again...

To avoid shipping charges, I sold my Paul Buff Einstein 640, PLM 64 kit before moving out of the US.

There were times when I regretted that decision.  I loved that kit.  It was flexible, fast to set up, and easy to carry.  Three heads, tripods, parabolic parapluies, portable back drop rig, and I was good to go.

After arriving in France I realized that for me to replace that kit would set me back nearly 4000USD.  Quel dommage!  Quel horreur!!  C'est vraiment trop cher. 

What to do?

"Use the Force", hook up Google's search engine, and do a little investigating, that's what's to do.

It took me some time, since I was so partial to the Einsteins.  I really wanted that old system, so nothing I looked at was ever good enough.

The problem, I saw, was that Paul Buff's European rep added a ton of uplift to the cost and padded things a bit to make sure their doors stayed open.  In other words, the cost of doing business put the cost of the Einsteins straight out of my price range.

Fortunately, after the fog in my thinking cleared and I realized there MUST be other good, if not better, manufacturers of photographic lighting equipment, I stumbled upon Elinchrom.

Elinchrom offers several light sources, heads, stands, and battery packs.  Since I plan on using these lights only where power is readily available, I could by-pass the rather large costs of a battery pack.

There were several kinds of heads to choose from, so it came down to choosing what I felt I could afford.

I sit, even now, out on the back porch of our new apartment down in the 15th arrondissement, in Paris, France, on a rather hot 33C day, listening to a couple several floors up eat a very late dejuner, watching the doves nesting in a tree near by, and wait, not so patiently, for ProPhot.fr to deliver my new three head Elinchrom BX 500 Ri kit.  They said they'd bring them before 18h00.  It's now 16h00 and my foot is tapping the varanda.

The portable backdrop, muslin, 109cm parapluies, and reflectors should arrive tomorrow from Amazon.fr.

With luck, I might have two models lined up to work with in August and maybe two more to make images with in September.  Though I'm still looking for creative people like those I worked with back in Portland, Oregon, USA.  They'll come.  Soon, I hope.

2 comments:

Erio said...

Besides the 4800 true watt seconds I need for the Wet Plate Collodion, I've got 1200 and 800 Speedotron packs and 4 heads. I've had these units since the late 1980's and I haven't had to replace nary a tube, though one model light broke, which was my fault. As much as I love this set up, I'd much rather have what you are getting. Elinchrom makes some really nice monoheads. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Christopher Mark Perez said...

I had to wait a little longer than expected, but the Elinchroms are all here.

I thought about Speedotrons and a couple other light systems that handle 240v/50hz power. After reading the reviews and seeing these in person, I had to have the Elinchroms.

I'll let you know how they work out when fired in anger. :-)