My Profoto Compact 600 review has been successful and so I hope this will be informative also. I live 7 to 8 hours drive to the nearest city that sells photography studio stuff and buy a lot of things online. Most of this stuff I buy unseen. I hope this review might help people in the same boat as me. Profoto seems to be of high quality but you pay for it.
A review of the Compact 600 series is located Here.
Sept. 11, 2008 – I was just informed by a reader that this movie quits playing after a couple of minutes. I tested and he is right. It must have gotten corupted some how. I re-uploaded it and it is working again. Sorry about that. By the way, Firefox 3 and Windows Media Movies = screw up. I am using only Flash movies on my new posts.
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.
Thank you for sharing!
Again your short videos have explained more than several days of web searching.
Mark,
I am starting off with first studio, and I picked up two white lighting 1,600 ws units. I want to add on two more lights, and I am thinking of the Compact 600r value pro pack. Would this be a good set up combition of 4 lights?
Thank you for you response.
David
Hi David
I do not see a problem with this combination of lights. You will probably end up using the Profotos as your main lights! I did not buy the units with the built in Pocket Wizards though. For about the same price I bought separate Pocket Wizards so I could use them how ever I wanted. You can even trip your camera remotely with Pocket Wizards if you buy the cord for your camera. You still have to buy one for your camera anyways. I bought 3, one for the camera and one each for the key and fill light. The background and accent lights are tripped by the optical slaves. Profoto is expensive but well built and the output is the same from flash to flash.
Mark
Hi Todd
Sorry but no I do not have any vids of the lights in use. My studio is a year old and I still am figuring out how to run it, let alone teach anything! Brand new to this part of photography. I wanted to start out with the best also, thinking the way you are. The Profoto stuff is probably the most expensive there is. The Compact lights are their cheapest lights compared to the generator sets. The accessories are expensive also. It is all well made stuff that works as intended though. I have not had any problems with the 4, 600 W/s units I bought. They work well. The light is absolutely constant per flash. I knocked over a light changing out the 3 x 4 ft soft box once. It fell onto a chair with no reflector attached. The cover glass, flash tube and modeling light all broke! The medal housing around the glass bent. Took it apart (good size wires, high quality parts, and good build quality) bent the housing back, the metal is light and soft but will not break when you bend it back. Replaced all the glass ( slightly less than half the cost of the unit!) It all works and can not tell what happened.
As said in other posts the kit stands are not the best and a bit on the light side, will be changing these out over time. Just bought a Manfrotto boom stand with counter weight, nice. I like good stuff!
Thanks for the comment, any other questions?
Mark
Mark, thank you for demonstrating the Profoto accessories. I was wondering if you have a video of the lights in use? I am considering buying my first set of studio lights and want to start out with a good set so I do not have to replace them. I believe in buying good equipment instead of settling for mediocre stuff and regretting it later and then having to sell it for a lot less than I paid for it to fund getting what I should have in the first place. I want something that recycles fast, has a good range of adjustability and is durable. Have you had any issues or needed service on the units? If so, how was the experience? Any help or advice you can provide is appreciated.
Regards,
Todd