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Newby with a Dynalite power pack problem

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DAVID1981

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Hi,

I have a problem with my lighting studio set up.

I am using a Dynalite M1000 Power Pack, it is an old model. With one flash (or two) flash lights, also from Dynalite, same date approx. Maybe 80's...just my guess.

The thing is that I have to shoot small objects (3 to 40 cm) from a short distance. Around 20cm - to a meter or so. The lights should be quite close to the object, like around 30 - 100 cm. When I plugged the power pack and I started shooting I realized that the power of the flashes are way to strong. Too much light! I think my power pack model does not have an option to lower the power of the flashes. So I am just thinking that maybe I should had buy a newer one with the option of lower the power of the flashes to 1/2 or 1/3. I see this option in the new ones.

I have been around this powerpack for ages and now I see this! OMG!

Is there any solution? Which power pack should I get for my type of work?

Thanks a lot!
 
To give a bit more info:

I am not using a light tent.

I use a LiteDome xs (Photoflex) to soft the light.

I am using a canon 5d mark iii connected to the power pack with a sync cable.
 
DAVID1981 said:
Hi,

I have a problem with my lighting studio set up.

I am using a Dynalite M1000 Power Pack, it is an old model. With one flash (or two) flash lights, also from Dynalite, same date approx. Maybe 80's...just my guess.

The thing is that I have to shoot small objects (3 to 40 cm) from a short distance. Around 20cm - to a meter or so. The lights should be quite close to the object, like around 30 - 100 cm. When I plugged the power pack and I started shooting I realized that the power of the flashes are way to strong. Too much light! I think my power pack model does not have an option to lower the power of the flashes. So I am just thinking that maybe I should had buy a newer one with the option of lower the power of the flashes to 1/2 or 1/3. I see this option in the new ones.

I have been around this powerpack for ages and now I see this! OMG!

Is there any solution? Which power pack should I get for my type of work?

Thanks a lot!
Click to expand...
You do have "some" ability to adjust the power with the M1000, just not a tremendous amount or ability to go very low by modern standards.

Your pack is what they call asymmetrical. You have 4 outlets that are on 2 channels broken down as A and B. Each Channel is capable of 500 w/s spread out over 2 head sockets. You can add the channels together for more power and symmetrical (equal power to all heads).

You also have paddles that allow you to set the individual channels to 500 w/s, 250 w/s, or 125 w/s.

So effectively with that pack you can get anywhere from 1000 w/s for one head or 500 w/s each for 2 heads down to 64.5 w/s each for 2 heads.

Your ability to have different power to individual heads means you would have one in Channel A and one in channel B. Then you are limited to a max of 500 w/s per head or a minimum of 125 w/s per head (you could get to the 62.5 if you had a 3rd head).



c8248398780a48669bad19af3c323af6.jpg.png



It is not a lot of power variation but you do have some ability there.

Also note that many of the older used packs might have arc'ed their switches by now and may not be functional. Best to check the variation with a meter. Either it works or it doesn't. There is no middle ground.

You can get into modern monolights (disclosure that I sell Godox Monolights) that would give you MUCH more ability to adjust power.

A 300 w/s Godox QS300 that would go down to about 9 w/s and sells for about $219 at www.blinkphotographic.com

There are also a lot more light modifiers available for monolights than the old Dynalite Can heads.

--
Matt LaPointe
Blink Photographic Equipment, Inc
 
Thanks a lot Matt! You really understand well the power pack!! I manage to get the wattage down now but still thinking this is too much power for the job I am doing. I use to work with just three leds each one of only 9w! No warm air around the lights, no hassles with many cables around... My products are sensible to temperature changes so maybe leds is the way to go?

Not sure if I need this power pack and flash lights. Also, there is no connection in relation to power of flash and aperture, etc with my camera...so it is really much more difficult to shoot than before using the leds all time.

I am just wondering if there is something similar to a power pack or a moonlight, something of quality, about leds. I think there must be, so I will have a look through internet.

thanks again!
 
The problem with LED panels is control at this point. For the most part, there are not many choices for light modifiers to get the same effects as flash.

LED Panels are cheap but usually 1'x1' square and there is a whole lot of variance in quality out there despite the different brands looking virtually identical.

There are smaller LED's like Dedolight or Fiilex that would probably work exactly how you want, but are out of the price range for many people.

There are also LED lights that look like Monolights but my experience (so far) is that none of them duplicate the light quality of flash with photographic light modifiers. Either they are too much of a point light source and don't utilize the actual modifier or they add a a diffusion dome to try and mitigate that and eat up a LOT of the power.

The Dedo's and Fiilex units are great tools, but it's not for everyone because of the pricing still.
 
I have one of those power packs.

How many heads do you have?

Anyway, a trick is to set it using as many heads as possible, which makes each head the least powerful it can be, and then point the heads you don't need into a closet or another room.

That leaves you with the lowest power.

Then start adding white towels over a softbox.

An M1000 power pack is not intended for closeups.

I have a 500 in addition, and it's powerful enough for most purposes I encounter.

bAK
 
DAVID1981 said:
Thanks a lot Matt! You really understand well the power pack!! I manage to get the wattage down now but still thinking this is too much power for the job I am doing. I use to work with just three leds each one of only 9w! No warm air around the lights, no hassles with many cables around... My products are sensible to temperature changes so maybe leds is the way to go?

Not sure if I need this power pack and flash lights. Also, there is no connection in relation to power of flash and aperture, etc with my camera...so it is really much more difficult to shoot than before using the leds all time.

I am just wondering if there is something similar to a power pack or a moonlight, something of quality, about leds. I think there must be, so I will have a look through internet.

thanks again!
Click to expand...
Short of going buying more lights - speedlights will work for this - you can add ND gels or wire scrims across the face of your softbox to cut down the amount of light without changing the quality of the light.

Loading…

www.ellsvener.com
 
If you are shooting non-live things, just use the modeling lights.

Use the sliders (skinny white triangle) to adjust the lights compared to each other, adjust your color balance, and use a tripod for the camera.

Problem solved.

BAK
 
The newer packs have a two stop variator in thirds of a stop. That's the equivalent of using two stops exposure compensation, which you can use on your camera.

And you can also double the distance of the lights to the objects to reduce the amount of light by a stop. Or stop the lens down a little more.
 
Matt L - Blink Photographic said:
The problem with LED panels is control at this point. For the most part, there are not many choices for light modifiers to get the same effects as flash.

LED Panels are cheap but usually 1'x1' square and there is a whole lot of variance in quality out there despite the different brands looking virtually identical.

There are smaller LED's like Dedolight or Fiilex that would probably work exactly how you want, but are out of the price range for many people.

There are also LED lights that look like Monolights but my experience (so far) is that none of them duplicate the light quality of flash with photographic light modifiers. Either they are too much of a point light source and don't utilize the actual modifier or they add a a diffusion dome to try and mitigate that and eat up a LOT of the power.

The Dedo's and Fiilex units are great tools, but it's not for everyone because of the pricing still.

--
Matt LaPointe
Blink Photographic Equipment, Inc
Click to expand...
Hi Matt,

I am agree with you. I just had a quick view to website of the brands you told me and definitely looks like what I was asking for. If there are some kind of basic softboxes to soft the light on these lights, I suppose there are. Definitely I would buy from them.

I paid more than USD 800 for the dynalite ones so I think if I sell this equipment maybe I could afford to test the ones we are speaking about.

Thanks a lot for your help!
 
BAK said:
I have one of those power packs.

How many heads do you have?

Anyway, a trick is to set it using as many heads as possible, which makes each head the least powerful it can be, and then point the heads you don't need into a closet or another room.

That leaves you with the lowest power.

Then start adding white towels over a softbox.

An M1000 power pack is not intended for closeups.

I have a 500 in addition, and it's powerful enough for most purposes I encounter.

bAK
Click to expand...
Hi Bak

I only have two heads.

You are right, this powerpack is not designed for close up photography. 99% of my work is shooting at 30 cm from the object being photographed. Apart from that, it creates to me a lot of problems, like heat around my objects, lots of cables, the difficulty of understand shooting with external flashes, etc

Speaking in general, maybe leds are better suited for close up photography.
 
BAK said:
If you are shooting non-live things, just use the modeling lights.

Use the sliders (skinny white triangle) to adjust the lights compared to each other, adjust your color balance, and use a tripod for the camera.

Problem solved.

BAK
Click to expand...
That is an option for sure. But still get the heat issue around the objects. Also you can not change the kelvin, I like to shoot my objetcs with cool lights, day light. With the modelling lights the color of my objects are non natural. Another reason why I like leds.

For sure I always use tripod.
 
Larry Berman said:
The newer packs have a two stop variator in thirds of a stop. That's the equivalent of using two stops exposure compensation, which you can use on your camera.

And you can also double the distance of the lights to the objects to reduce the amount of light by a stop. Or stop the lens down a little more.

--
Larry Berman
http://bermangraphics.com
http://larryberman.com
Click to expand...
Thanks Larry but I can not double the of the lights to the objects. My boom is limited, studio size, etc.

Yes, the newer ones are better on power management but still think some led brands, cited by other member, suit me best.

thanks!
 
I agree with Ellis that a speedlite would work best in your situation. No fans and the option to go down to 1/128th power seems to be the perfect solution.
 
I find changing the color balance setting on the camera takes care of the difference between flash color and modeling light color, and having the modeling light switch in the power pack lets me simply turn the lights off if it is getting too hot.

There's no question that there are better ways of lighting smallish objects for still life product shots that a Dynalite 1000, but if that's the one you've already bought and paid for, it at least will do the job.

BAK
 
If you mean Speedlight flash on top of my camera. That is not work for my job because I need the light on top of my object, to play with the reflections of the light, etc. I need that light on top, plus sometimes another light at the same height of the object. A light on top of the camera not work for me. Also, the modelling light is basic because without it how can I play with the reflections? Just a few led on top of the object it was a good start, but I am looking for a more professional one. It is clear that the M1000 is not very suitable for me job.
 
BAK said:
I find changing the color balance setting on the camera takes care of the difference between flash color and modeling light color, and having the modeling light switch in the power pack lets me simply turn the lights off if it is getting too hot.

There's no question that there are better ways of lighting smallish objects for still life product shots that a Dynalite 1000, but if that's the one you've already bought and paid for, it at least will do the job.

BAK
Click to expand...
Hi BAK,



As you say, there are better options, that why my M1000 will be sold, hopefully soon! My idea is to put the money of it into new led lights, professional ones like the ones another poster said, Dedolight, etc. Thanks!



5890ad11ca7542b282c0917183ef934b.jpg
 
The problem with LED lights is the same as with fluorescent lights, a lack of good color fidelity. This is because they produce "white" light by mixing individual colors. With LEDs it is mixing three different individual color LEDs on a single chip. For fluorescents it is by mixing different fluorescing powders in the powder coating on the inside of the tube.

By using a color checker combined with a WB correction you can do a pretty good, but not perfect, job of correcting the inaccurate colors you get using LED or fluorescent lighting.

Incandescent lights and flash are really the only two artificial full spectrum lights. Using a color checker combined with a WB correction with incandescent or flash will give you accurate colors.

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport – X-Rite Photo – X-Rite Passport

Studio strobes have modeling lights that show you the lighting on the subject before you ever press the shutter button. Hot-shoe flash isn't a good choice since it requires multiple test shots to get the lighting correct.

Since your subjects are heat sensitive you could work with incandescent lighting (lights or modeling light of strobes) by just turning them on for short times while setting up and then just for the exposure.

Many new studio strobes are going to LED modeling lights, eliminating the heat problem for setup. The strobe flash is so fast that very little subject heating occurs.

My recommendation is one of the newer studio strobes with LED modeling lights and a lot of power adjustment. The Godox QS300 Matt sells is one example but there are others.
 
Sailor Blue said:
The problem with LED lights is the same as with fluorescent lights, a lack of good color fidelity. This is because they produce "white" light by mixing individual colors. With LEDs it is mixing three different individual color LEDs on a single chip. For fluorescents it is by mixing different fluorescing powders in the powder coating on the inside of the tube.

By using a color checker combined with a WB correction you can do a pretty good, but not perfect, job of correcting the inaccurate colors you get using LED or fluorescent lighting.

Incandescent lights and flash are really the only two artificial full spectrum lights. Using a color checker combined with a WB correction with incandescent or flash will give you accurate colors.

X-Rite ColorChecker Passport – X-Rite Photo – X-Rite Passport

Studio strobes have modeling lights that show you the lighting on the subject before you ever press the shutter button. Hot-shoe flash isn't a good choice since it requires multiple test shots to get the lighting correct.

Since your subjects are heat sensitive you could work with incandescent lighting (lights or modeling light of strobes) by just turning them on for short times while setting up and then just for the exposure.

Many new studio strobes are going to LED modeling lights, eliminating the heat problem for setup. The strobe flash is so fast that very little subject heating occurs.

My recommendation is one of the newer studio strobes with LED modeling lights and a lot of power adjustment. The Godox QS300 Matt sells is one example but there are others.

--
Living and loving it in Pattaya, Thailand. Canon 7D - See the gear list for the rest.
Click to expand...
Interesting what you are saying. I don't have knowledge about the science behind the different types of lights. But my experience says that I get more accurate colors with leds than with incandescent but not always, depends of the product being photographed.

I think with leds of 5000 k or so you get similar colors to the ones you get with sunlight. But with the incandescent lights (for example the modelling ones of my power pack) you get more yellowish colors. However I obtain correct colors using flash.

Some leds offer a CRI> 90. Not sure which CRI could offer the modelling lights of my power pack.

I cannot turn off the modelling lights because I spend lots of time moving reflectors to highlight different areas of my products, lots of different textures, very reflective surfaces, matt surfaces, etc. So I need the modelling lights on all time. And then when I shoot I need the flash to offer same power of the modelling lights. Not sure if you know what I mean! haha.

I am agree, the Godox could be a good option, at least better than my Dynalite old pack!
 
DAVID1981 said:
Interesting what you are saying. I don't have knowledge about the science behind the different types of lights. But my experience says that I get more accurate colors with leds than with incandescent but not always, depends of the product being photographed.

I think with leds of 5000 k or so you get similar colors to the ones you get with sunlight. But with the incandescent lights (for example the modelling ones of my power pack) you get more yellowish colors. However I obtain correct colors using flash.

Some leds offer a CRI> 90. Not sure which CRI could offer the modelling lights of my power pack.

I cannot turn off the modelling lights because I spend lots of time moving reflectors to highlight different areas of my products, lots of different textures, very reflective surfaces, matt surfaces, etc. So I need the modelling lights on all time. And then when I shoot I need the flash to offer same power of the modelling lights. Not sure if you know what I mean! haha.

I am agree, the Godox could be a good option, at least better than my Dynalite old pack!
Click to expand...
David,

You are confusing color temperature with the spectrum of light that is produced.

Incandescent and tungsten modeling lamps are anywhere from 2800K to 3400K usually, so produce a orange'ish light. This can be corrected via white balance or in the old days gels or tungsten film.

LED's can be made in many color temperatures and adjusted. There are daylight panels (anywhere from 4800K to 6000K), Tungsten Panels (2800K to 3400K) and Bi-color panels (fully adjustable from 2800K to about 5500K usually).

Because of their spectrum problems most panels usually have a magenta or green bias.

I was the National Business Development Manager for Bowens Flash and Limelite LED panels and we discovered that MOST manufacturers were way off on their CRI Estimates. Ourselves included.

Some were wildly off.

LED's are getting better and the introduction of RGB LED's into the market definitely has reduced the color problems. The problem is RGB LED's are still quite expensive and usually only available on higher end products.

This certainly does not mean that there isn't a place for LED's or that LED's don't fit the needs of many photographers. It just means that the technology is still improving and does have some limitations.
 
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