That’s the real beauty of the Skyport system it’s totally backwards compatible with other heads/flash guns. I’m getting a rig with the Skyport RX that’s going to be using a blend of 400BXs and 300RXs. The 300RX will be used for when the lights are to be placed in awkward positions such as hairlights or octabanks.

Love reading your blog…tell me which strobe would you recommend using inside of a lastolite hilite…I’ve just ordered one but I need a strobe strong enough to fill it the inside of it…

Super Bummed

After reading your post and some of the questions regarding the Elinchrom lights, I thought I would throw in some support for these lights.

3 years ago, I purchased 8 600RX units to shoot Arena Football. At the time, I was strongly considering buying a much cheaper monolight made of many colors. The price was over double for the Elinchrom units, but 3 years later, I am glad I spent the extra money.

A good friend of mine is a photographer for Sports Illustrated, and he was really digging on these lights at the time. For those of you interested in shooting sports, you will have no problem stopping the action, as the flash duration is about 1/2000 of a second. In addition, Elinchrom has the best reflector selections available.

At GA Tech last year, I had 4 of these lights installed in the Catwalk for shooting basketball. Each and every game, my action was frozen with very few frames showing any sort of motion blur. Another photographer had the colored monolights right next to mine and his frames never compared, as the majority of his shots had motion blur with an exposure that was 1 stop of light less at the court. I was close to 4 stops over ambient, and he was about 2.5 to 3. In addition, his lights lit up the whole arena, stands and all, where mine lit up mostly the court.

Aside from shooting sports, these lights are awesome in the studio and on location. I have used mine for shooting NFL and MLB headshots, portraits, team photos, modeling and catalog photography. Never have I found myself needing more power. To be be hones, I did find myself needing less at times… so out comes the ND filter.

The 1/10 of a stop increments in exposure really allow you to dial in the perfect exposure, and the color temperature on my lights has been very consistent.

Just last month, I had to shoot the Braves 2008 Merchandise Catalog at Spring Traning in Orlando, Florida. At the time, I contemplated buying a Ranger, as this is something that I have always wanted. However, trying to budget my expenses and not blow the bank every time I turn around, I began checking on a rechargable system that would allow me to use my 600 RX lights.

After a lot of checking and talking, I decided to try the new Alien Bee Vega Bond II… Alien Bees guaranteed that the VB II would power the 600RX flawlessly, and in comparison to the Dynalite Power Supply and the Ranger Kit, the price was well worth the try. However, if I have to be honest, as I headed to Florida for my shoot, I a very bad feeling that I would be ordering a Ranger Kit next day air. Nonetheless, for the difference in price, it was a chance I was willing to take.

On our first day, I was blown away… I was able to shoot 2 players and 2 models on 1 Vega Bond powering (2) 600RX units. This was a shooting time from 7AM to 4 PM. This unit powered nearly 1000 frames at a speedy recycle time of about 1-2 seconds, depending on the power I was running. Never once did it show sighs of running our of power. The second day of the shoot was just as impressive, as I fired off even more shots with the exact same results. The Braves were happy, the models were happy and I was happy that I got to wait a little longer on buying the Ranger kit.

For those of you looking for a system that will allow you to shoot on location, I would offer that the Vega Bond II is worth a try. It is ugly and if compared closely, it is not a Ranger. If money is no object or if you are shooting on location for big bucks every day, then the Ranger is definitely the way to go for your location lighting.

For any of you looking to buy some used Photoflex 5′ octadomes or 7′ octadomes, give me a shout. I have 2 of each that I am selling as the result of buying the Elinchrom boxes earlier this month. They are in great shape and I do not need two sets. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Second question… have you used your elinchrom setup in conjunction with SB-800? How? I used to have D2x and the manual said not to use the PC port and the flash foot at the same time… but didn’t say why. So I ended up using the SB’s in slave mode (SU-4), and loosing the CLS and the at-camera management of them. Does the skyport setup help in a mixed environment like this?

thanks man! You rock!