Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

Because of

- the endless waiting time, ETA hardly ever met with new items,
- flaws in original design (well o, best enough to attract chinese- und maybe UK-based copycats),
- delivery with uncertain outcome....


Never have had PCB-equipment in my hands before opposed to swedish and german pro-lighting-gear for many years.

On the EU-waiting list since early may 2010 and I will NOT cancel my order, because the productline with EINSTEINs and PLMs (now both V2.1) looks advanced and ahead of the crowd and do seem to serve the demands of day in day out shooting with ease.

Hope that the teamwork of designing (PW) and selling (PCB) of the Powermc2 will be on the spot.

So, umm, do you have a question?

Yeah, is it worth waiting?

Given the skills and motivation:

Can an Einstein and PLMs do magic?

Only you can decide if it is worth it for you to wait. The new stuff from PCB is awesome. It is probably as close to magic as anyone is producing right now but it all depends on your needs and desires.

I'm a recent convert to PCB equipment. For 15 years I shot with Dyna-lite packs and heads.

When I first saw the preliminary specs on the Einstein I was impressed. When I saw the price I really took notice. The more info that came out the better they looked. And then I saw the CyberCommander.

I was sold!

So now I have seven Einsteins and a bunch of PCB remotes and accessories. Still waiting on the PLMs I have on order but again from what I've read they should be a great addition to the modifiers I already have.

Here's real life examples of why the system was worth the wait for me.

Shot a group for a clients Christmas card. Not a big deal but there were 20 folks including several children.

Anyhow long story short, we shot in a gym with the camera on one side and the people arranged on different rows in the bleachers in the shape of pyramid. Get it? Tree shaped, Christmas.

Here's the part where the Einstien/CyberCommander system becomes so important.

Even after metering the lights some fine tuning had to be done. Having no assistant it meant that I would have had to do some running around and for a couple of lights up into the bleachers while twenty folks sat there waiting.

Being able to adjust everything from the camera made a huge difference in that I never "lost" the subjects, especially the kids.

The Einstein/CC system works for me, I'm never going back to a system where the strobes can not be controlled by remote.

Thanks alot indeed, Photoflight.

Can you judge from modelling-lights (250W max) coming from the EINSTEIN indoors?

"in the shape of pyramid. Get it? Tree shaped, Christmas."

Sure!

Hope your client never wants a "Feast of Corpus Christi"-postcard!

Best regards.

The Last Supper? Maybe for next year.

Hello Photoflight,

is has been shot before:

http://www.theophil-online.de/philipp/mfphil10.htm

With 7 EINSTEINs on location, don`t you ever trip over the wallplug-cable mess?

It can get a bit crowded in small areas. Some food shots will have 5 lights and a couple of stands with arms holding reflectors or gobos.

But with most of my shooting there's enough space to spread stuff around. With Architecture shooting for instance the lighting tends to be layered. Two or three lights up front, couple in the middle ground, couple in the background and sometimes there's one or two outside.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_IyCaM2i2sRU/THKoZ ... %20MOD.jpg

I have no idea if this will show up or not but there's 10-11 lights on this one. Most are tungstan lights but there's several strobes in there two. I just use them for the modeling lights.

This is VERY even exposed, eg the foreground grass.


Exposure time in whole seconds, or multiple shots ?