Paterson Panel Flashes

Hello, does anyone have any comments or expirence with the Paterson
Digitflash or Cyberflash? Any at all? I am thinking for portrait and
product photography.

Robert Meyers
-Crossposted only to the relavent groups.

"Michael Benveniste" wrote in message
...
"Robert Meyers" wrote in message
...
Hello, does anyone have any comments or expirence with the Paterson
Digitflash or Cyberflash? Any at all? I am thinking for portrait and
product photography.

I rented a single 500 w/s Digitflash setup a couple of months ago. I
also own one of the small e-Flash units, albeit in Sunpak FP38 guise.

The Digitflash was the classic good news/bad news situation. It's
reasonably well built and easier to pack and transport than a standard
monolight. Before modifiers, though, it's no lighter.

The modeling light is reasonably bright, and far closer to daylight
temperature than a conventional unit. I found the flash color to be
good (with Provia and NPS) and output to be consistent. While the
recycle time specs seem slow, since I wasn't bouncing the light
off an umbrella or through a softbox, I found myself using a lower
power setting. That made for very reasonable recycle times during
the shoot.

However, the "no umbrella or softbox" thing cut both ways. The
panel is too small to provide much in the way of wrap-around for
portraits. I also found it to be more directional than expected. At
one point, I moved the light and mispointed it by about 10 degrees.
This caused a fatal underexposure while trying a "product shot."

As for the FP38, well, it's an interesting toy. I bought it for use
as an accent light and my first experiments looked pretty good.
However, when another volunteer photographer backed out on about a 150-
shot session, I gave it a try and quickly found its limits. Battery
life was unpredictable. Several times, it failed to fire after being
on standby for 3-4 minutes, so we triggered with the test button before
each series of film shots. And despite extra care in moving the unit,
I once again ended up with underexposed shots. Not recommended.

Thanks for the input Michael. I kinda lost tracking in here though. What
is your overall
oppinion of the Digitflash? I will not be trying the small shoe flashes of
the panel variety at this time.
But for a very enclosed space, would you think the Digitflash would work for
head and shoulder
portraits?

Thanks!

Robert Meyers

"Michael Benveniste" wrote in message
...
"Robert Meyers" wrote:

But for a very enclosed space, would you think the Digitflash would work
for
head and shoulder portraits?

Would the Digitlite work? Certainly. Would it be my first choice for a
small home studio setup? Almost certainly not.

The light from a Digitlite is softer than my conventional low-end
monolights when used in their standard reflector, but it's not as soft
as the same monolight when used with an equally low-end 2'x3' softbox
or a 40" umbrella. Unless you're _really_ tight on space, setups built
around Alien Bees or other medium quality monolights will offer you more
control and flexibility at an equivalent or lower cost.

Of course, I may be the wrong person to give advice. Since I'm
not a pro, nor trying to be one, I chose a low-end Smith Victor
setup and have been regretting it ever since.

My Garage is 18' L x 8'W x 8'H . My worry is when I try for two soft boxes,
I will have a model with like 2' to move in this is not cool. With the
DigitFlash, the models could be placed anywhere with at least 6' to
manuaver.
Or at least that was my primary thinking.

Robert Meyers

"Robert Meyers" wrote:

My Garage is 18' L x 8'W x 8'H . My worry is when I try for two soft
boxes,
I will have a model with like 2' to move in this is not cool.

That's fairly tight, but with more conventional light placements
you'll find that there's slightly more room than that. How were
you planning to control "fill" from reflections off the opposite
walls?

--
Michael Benveniste --
Spam and UCE professionally evaluated for $419. Use this email
address only to submit mail for evaluation.

"Robert Meyers" wrote:

My Garage is 18' L x 8'W x 8'H . My worry is when I try for two soft
boxes,
I will have a model with like 2' to move in this is not cool.

That's fairly tight, but with more conventional light placements
you'll find that there's slightly more room than that. How were
you planning to control "fill" from reflections off the opposite
walls?

--
Michael Benveniste --
Spam and UCE professionally evaluated for $419. Use this email
address only to submit mail for evaluation.

"Michael Benveniste" wrote in message
...
"Robert Meyers" wrote:

My Garage is 18' L x 8'W x 8'H . My worry is when I try for two soft
boxes,
I will have a model with like 2' to move in this is not cool.

That's fairly tight, but with more conventional light placements
you'll find that there's slightly more room than that. How were
you planning to control "fill" from reflections off the opposite
walls?

I was planning on the reflected fill, and was planning on using barn doors
on the flash for
directional control (there actually is a four leaf set for the peterson).
For the begining I
was planning on using my on camera flash as reflected fill. If needed, I
can place black
construction paper up to reduce reflections, if needed. I am trying for the
most I can
make out of the space.

Sound effective or no?

Thanks!

Dows anyone think it would be hard to build a larger softbox for the Cyber
or Digit Flashes? Especially if you put on the barndoors? Primarily in a
goal to use a thinner flash?

"Robert Meyers" wrote in message
...
Hello, does anyone have any comments or expirence with the Paterson
Digitflash or Cyberflash? Any at all? I am thinking for portrait and
product photography.

Robert Meyers
-Crossposted only to the relavent groups.