Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I can say one thing looking at the CyberCommander posts:

I'd MUCH rather wait for the release of the fully tested, stable Einstein unit than to get it sooner only to wait for some fix later.

I hope Paul and team does a good job and I especially hope he has good control of testing whatever those 3rd party digital software guys produce for the Einstein.

Regards

Michelle

George is so right I was watching a show about Leonarddo DeVinci and it said he missed every deadline for the fresco "The Last Supper" Under the presure from the Pope. He had to restart the wall a few times and when he was done 491 years after his death not many people in the world dont know about this work of art. I say it was worth waiting for!

LOL I'm with you guys with one caveat:

I'm sure Leonardo da Vinci wasn't the only painter who was late back in the days. As you said, we remember him not for the lateness but for the masterpieces actually delivered. There must have been countless others who were also late, who are long since forgotten, whose frescoes and paintings might have been well-conceived but not executed up to the highest standards of the time.

I do not want to belabor comparisons of architecture and paintings to modern pro lighting hardware's and software's quality - the bottom line is I think we're all happy to wait as long as the product delivers on its promises and its function is stable and dependable (and its sister product CyberCommander is brought up to the same level stability wise).

Michelle

We just built up a dozen Einsteins with what looks like final production boards. They work and I am doing complete evaluation today. Dr Mike is back at work on a controlled basis and will be doing additional evaluation. He's doing pretty good - not perfect, but 80%.

With luck we will start production toward the end of next week - but it's going to take some time to ramp up production as we have a ton of pre orders. IMHO, to quote from the Gecko's boss, this thing is the Bees Knees. It does everything and does it well, and works incredibly with Cyber Commander . . . they we co-developed all along to work as an integrated system . . . the ability to use CC with classic lights was added (for very good reason . . . who else brings their 23 year old up to digital age standards?)

I just finished writing the Einstein manual and we should be able to get it on line next week. When you overview the manual and the product I believe most will understand the delays and rave about the product . . . it's truly the future state of the art. I don't brag about my work all that much, but Einstein is a Giant Killer.

By the way, Einstein has an "Easy Set" button that sets all the parameters for typical use. Push the button and it you're ready to shoot - even easier than AB. Go into the logical menu system and you can make it do anything except make dinner.

Great News Paul !!!! Congrats !!

congratulations Paul, may your satisfaction be shared by thousands

Excellent news, both on the lights and your engineer being well enough to be working after such a seizure.

thanks for the update.

Great news indeed :-)

btw, not sure if this has been asked before, but any way to make the einstein behave color-wise like an older AB? (to get it to blend w/ mixed AB/WL setups better in color matching at different power levels?)

I would if I could but I can't. For a given flashtube the only way to lower color temperature is to lower the the voltage. This reduces the power and lengthens the flash duration . . . that's what you see on an AB or any other monolight. On Einstein, a firmware change could make Einstein act just like an AB, but then it would have the same duration and color shifts as a Bee. as a Bee. Actually not a bad idea though . . . a firmware option that mimics a conventional monolight.

I'm looking more toward the future where studios use all Einsteins and thus have none of these anomalies. Right now this freedom comes at the cost of using multi thousand dollar Euro pack and a bunch of heads . . . something I don't agree with because of all the cables and difficulty in distributing the power where you want it. Compare a $10,000 high end 2400WS pack plus the expensive flasheads with four Einsteins at under $2000 - about a seven to one cost difference and no Cyber Commander.

The cost of everything Einstein put in that tiny package really adds up and we have global parts cost inflation so I must forewarn that Einstein is going to have to go to $499.95 in the coming months because of this. It's really an $800 - $1000 light, but I don't want to go there.

I'm gestating future lights now and keep coming up with "What can I take off to get the price down"

I get a kick out of some of the snobs who say "I can't set the flash duration and color anywhere I want with my $12,000 XXX pack." They forget to mention that they can only do this at vastly reduced power and can't just magically ask for 5000°K at 1/5000 t.1 at 2000WS . . . can't happen.

So, we should order as many as we can afford now? Not denying the value, just trying to get the best deal.