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What Strobe Can Fire Continuously for 300 Shots?

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Joseph O. Holmes

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I have a job that requires continuous shooting, 300 shots at 1/2 second intervals.

I need a strobe that can fire for that whole 300-shot sequence. My Nikon SB-800 can fire at 1/4 power 100 times -- I just tried it -- but it gets way too hot, and Nikon says I'm risking burning up the strobe.

The Nikon SB-900 has the same limitations.

Any suggestions? I'd like to either buy something not too expensive or rent.

-=-Joe
--
portfolio: http://streetnine.com/
daily photo: http://streetnine.com/blog

(I am NOT the terrific nature photographer Joseph Holmes at josephholmes.com)
 
(if) you only need the power equivalent of sb800 at 1/4 power...

an alienbee or whitelightning unit should be fine....

by using more powerful/efficient reflectors (etc) you can use less capacitor power
(joules) and these units should be capable...

designing your lighting set up to use the least amount of power will ALWAYS increase the number of 'quick' shots you can take...before melting the equipment...

very logical.
 
Cool -- thanks y'all. I dropped by a rental shop today and they put together a kit with an Acute 600R kit, grid and reflector, two spare batteries, Pocket Wizard transmitter.

Even at 1/4 power, the batteries are supposed be good for a few hundred pops.

This looks like the setup I need.

-=-Joe
--
portfolio: http://streetnine.com/
daily photo: http://streetnine.com/blog

(I am NOT the terrific nature photographer Joseph Holmes at josephholmes.com)
 
Paul Bluff of Alien Bees has a special strobe for what your are describing. The Quantum and similar flash heads that have the strobe tube not enclosed can fire without the heat buildup you get with your Nikon flash.
 
Joseph O. Holmes said:
I have a job that requires continuous shooting, 300 shots at 1/2 second intervals.
Click to expand...
Any of the Quantum range will do it. A Quantum Trio was encased in a waterproof shell and dropped to the seabed to document the environment. Much the same requirement you have, except you don't want to be wet. I think their service cycle was 5000 images rather than 300.

--
Ian.

Samples of work: http://www.AccoladePhotography.co.uk
Weddings: http://www.AccoladeWeddings.com
Events: http://www.OfficialPhotographer.com

Theres only one sun. Why do I need more than one light to get a natural result?
 
5000 ?... Ha!! I got that wrong :(

Try 120,000 !! I knew it was a lot.

http://www.newsletter.qtm.com/index.php?mnth=200908

From that Quantum newsletter:

'The Qflash TRIO has teamed up with a specialized camera mounted in a vacuum sealed sphere of a robotic submarine that travels to depths of 4500m (13,500ft). The camera is programmed to continuously take a flash picture every 1.5 seconds during the 50 hours that the robotic sub is under the water. That's 120,000 flashes in 50 hours. The TRIO's user, replaceable flash tube is replaced at the start of the third trip after 250,000 flashes.

The robotic submarine is used to survey and map the ocean floor for oil and gas companies, look for sunken ships and find any lost objects that have found their way to the ocean floor.'

--
Ian.

Samples of work: http://www.AccoladePhotography.co.uk
Weddings: http://www.AccoladeWeddings.com
Events: http://www.OfficialPhotographer.com

Theres only one sun. Why do I need more than one light to get a natural result?
 
lol - water cooling - especially when the water is at 4 deg. C - is far superior to air cooling.

I am curious as to what the application is that needs this 300 shot sequence as well.

At 1/2 second between, any modern camera has plenty of time to write out JPEGs, several can do RAWs at that rate these days.
 
and a big fan blowing at the flash head.

You'd probbly be better off with a flood light.

BAK
 
.. you have some sort of timer for the half second shutter releases?

Might need to rent that, too.

BAK
 
Use hot lights.

Presuming your doing some sort of time lap
Joseph O. Holmes said:
I have a job that requires continuous shooting, 300 shots at 1/2 second intervals.

I need a strobe that can fire for that whole 300-shot sequence. My Nikon SB-800 can fire at 1/4 power 100 times -- I just tried it -- but it gets way too hot, and Nikon says I'm risking burning up the strobe.

The Nikon SB-900 has the same limitations.

Any suggestions? I'd like to either buy something not too expensive or rent.

-=-Joe
--
portfolio: http://streetnine.com/
daily photo: http://streetnine.com/blog

(I am NOT the terrific nature photographer Joseph Holmes at josephholmes.com)
Click to expand...
 
animal78 said:
Have you tested the camera buffer to see if it will handle that many frames, that fast?
Click to expand...
Yes. The D700 shooting jpeg can easily keep up with the buffer with a fast card (I use a Sandisk 60MB/s card).

The camera is hard-wired to shoot no more than 100 continuous images, though, so I've got to retrigger the sutter when it hits 100.

-=-Joe
--
portfolio: http://streetnine.com/
daily photo: http://streetnine.com/blog

(I am NOT the terrific nature photographer Joseph Holmes at josephholmes.com)
 
I knew I could count on the dpreview forums to come up with specific suggestions, important questions, etc.

Thanks for all the help.

Up above in the thread, I mentioned the kit that a rental house put together for me.

It's just $150 plus tax for two days, very reasonable, so I'm going with that.

Pretty similar to what was suggested here in this thread.

Thanks again!

-=-Joe
--
portfolio: http://streetnine.com/
daily photo: http://streetnine.com/blog

(I am NOT the terrific nature photographer Joseph Holmes at josephholmes.com)
 
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