Converting Flash Units First Images

When we did the High School Junior Senior dance I realized my Nikon Wireless strobes lacked the necessary power for a large room with poor lighting so I started to look at different lighting systems to complement what I have and use. When we did the cap and gown shooting my system (Nikon Wireless) worked fine and produced images as good as the other photographer did with his studio strobes. But I still wanted to move on so I did a lot of research on line reading posts and watching videos on the pros and cons of the various systems I was interested in and I also called and talked to two fellow photographers that have 50 years in the business between them as to their thoughts and opinions on one line I was interested in called “Alien Bee’s” and was surprised that they both were familiar with the brand and both felt they would more than meet my needs. I also talked to my partner ( I am retired from the same company he is still working there) about what he used and to my surprise it was the same line I was looking at. So I ordered one B1600 rated at 640 watts of light and being able to reduce the power down to 1/32nd power, it was a basic kit that included a heavy duty stand, a silver umbrella, a carrying case for the strobe and related cords. I promptly broke one end of the sync cable and called the factory for a replacement shipment and they did just that and for no charge (service as advertised).

Since the light and all of the necessary parts have arrived I have been setting it up and working on how to best use the one strobe and how to integrate it with the Nikon wireless setup I already own. So far it has done more than I expected and I am pleased at the light produced and the real ability to reduce the out put to my needs. One caveat for me will be procuring the wireless transmitter and receiver for the first strobe and then adding a receiver for the balance I intend to buy. At the last school shoot I was working I noticed that any one behind us that fired there flash caused our set up to fire also and I am sure they have some over exposed pictures but that is the way it is. When I attach the new wireless slave to a strobe it will not fire from any flash in the area. I tested this with the sync cable plugged into the strobe with the strobe powered up and used my on board flash from my backup camera to see if it would fire the flash and it did not. 

Lilly

 Smile rock

The images here were taken at my home studio and then re-sized and enhanced in CS Four for the web. I took a lot of pictures at different levels of light out put to see how much control I really had with the cameras and the main strobe light. The images were shot at F5.6 shutter @250 and ISO at 160 for the picture with the rock, the Lilly was shot at F.9 shutter @100 and the ISO at 160.