Elinchrom and Profoto Octabox and Speedlights

Arash31 · Aug 24, 2015

hi there,

I am looking at adding an octabox to my kit. I don't use strobes. I have a set of Nikon Speedlights (910 and SB700). Would appreciate your help on the following:

1. From what I understand Profoto and Elinchrom Octaboxes are meant to be used with their lighting system. Would they work with my speed light?

2. My intention is to be able to have on the location Octaboxes to take a 3/4 length photos of 1-4 people. For that I was looking at two of the following:

A. Elinchrom 39" Deep

B. Elinchrom 39" min Octobox

C. Profoto 3' Octa

D. Profoto 3x2 Softbox

Again, would want to be able to use these with my Nikon Speedlights. Your help is appreciated in advance.

Thanks

PenPix · Aug 25, 2015

Arash31 said:
hi there,

I am looking at adding an octabox to my kit. I don't use strobes. I have a set of Nikon Speedlights (910 and SB700). Would appreciate your help on the following:

1. From what I understand Profoto and Elinchrom Octaboxes are meant to be used with their lighting system. Would they work with my speed light?

2. My intention is to be able to have on the location Octaboxes to take a 3/4 length photos of 1-4 people. For that I was looking at two of the following:

A. Elinchrom 39" Deep

B. Elinchrom 39" min Octobox

C. Profoto 3' Octa

D. Profoto 3x2 Softbox

Again, would want to be able to use these with my Nikon Speedlights. Your help is appreciated in advance.

Thanks

From what I have researched, a speedlight has the power equivelent to a 60-75 watt-second studio strobe. For the size of softboxes you are using, a 300 w/s strobe would have to be used very close to the subject if you want to use the base ISO and still have a reasonable f-stop.

I use an SB700 with a 14"x14" Lastolite EZ Box Hotshoe for tight head shots and my f-stop is around f/5.6. Your 3'x2' softbox needs to spread that light to 4 times the area. If I'm not mistaken, you will need to shoot at f/1.2 or bump the ISO up 4-stops for the same exposure. (I know there is someone on the forums that can answer that definitively!)

Myy local camera shop sells an adapter that lets you use up to 4 speedlights in a large modifier. However, 4 x SB910 is serious coin and you are in the realm of a battery strobe system. The price of a single SB910 gets you a nice Alien Bees, and that might be a wiser choice.

Nikonparrothead · Aug 25, 2015

Arash31 said:
hi there,

I am looking at adding an octabox to my kit. I don't use strobes. I have a set of Nikon Speedlights (910 and SB700). Would appreciate your help on the following:

1. From what I understand Profoto and Elinchrom Octaboxes are meant to be used with their lighting system. Would they work with my speed light?

2. My intention is to be able to have on the location Octaboxes to take a 3/4 length photos of 1-4 people. For that I was looking at two of the following:

A. Elinchrom 39" Deep

B. Elinchrom 39" min Octobox

C. Profoto 3' Octa

D. Profoto 3x2 Softbox

Again, would want to be able to use these with my Nikon Speedlights. Your help is appreciated in advance.

Thanks

I can't help you with Profoto. I do have the Elinchrom Deep Octa and I love the light. Technically you could buy a bracket like this:

Loading…

www.amazon.com

to mount a speedlight to Elinchrom gear

and to use multiple speedlights, use some thing like this:

Loading…

www.amazon.com

I have the Godox bracket. I don't know if I'd mount a Deep Octa to it because eventually the torque would tear it up (especailly when one adds wind).

Good luck with your endeavor.

jorge elguera · Aug 25, 2015

With such a large Octabox, you wont get enough power from your speedlite. To get the correct exposure, you will have to either raise the ISO or open the aperture, which would also mean more ambient light, meaning that the Octabox and speedlite would be working as a "fill" more than as a main light over powering the ambient.

jorge elguera · Aug 25, 2015

Ohhh, if you definitely need to include an octabox and keep your speedlite, i would recommend getting a Neewer/Godox/Lencarta/Cheetahstand flash unit, which has the power of 4-8 speedlights and is not huge in size. Best of all, it can work as a slave and be triggered by your speedlights. The downside is that it is currently not ETTL, so if you are uncomfortable with this, please dont even bother reading my advice. My experience with these lights is ultra positive, great build, reliability and power.

Check out the kit with included battery power :

Amazon.com : Godox Witstro AD360 High Power External Portable Flash Set Speedlite Kits : Camera Flash Synch Cords : Electronics

www.amazon.com

SKersting66 · Aug 25, 2015

PenPix said:
PenPix wrote:
I use an SB700 with a 14"x14" Lastolite EZ Box Hotshoe for tight head shots and my f-stop is around f/5.6. Your 3'x2' softbox needs to spread that light to 4 times the area. If I'm not mistaken, you will need to shoot at f/1.2 or bump the ISO up 4-stops for the same exposure. (I know there is someone on the forums that can answer that definitively!)

Not really. With a typical softbox you are only filling it with the existing light spread so the only light loss is due to the diffusion (~ 1 stop).

You are (kind of) correct however that if the light beam is spread to a larger area (indirect reflecting) then the light requirement can change significantly. I think the difference is more like 3 times the area, so the inverse square law would say that it would require 9 stops more.

A 3ft modifier is pretty small for doing 3/4 portraits of 4 people. It will be somewhat better than no modifier, but I would think a bounce umbrella of any size would be about as good.

--
https://www.flickr.com/photos/skersting/

Arash31 · Aug 26, 2015

jorge elguera said:
Ohhh, if you definitely need to include an octabox and keep your speedlite, i would recommend getting a Neewer/Godox/Lencarta/Cheetahstand flash unit, which has the power of 4-8 speedlights and is not huge in size. Best of all, it can work as a slave and be triggered by your speedlights. The downside is that it is currently not ETTL, so if you are uncomfortable with this, please dont even bother reading my advice. My experience with these lights is ultra positive, great build, reliability and power.

Check out the kit with included battery power :

http://www.amazon.com/Godox-Witstro-External-Portable-Speedlite/dp/B00F19OBA0

Simon Barker · Aug 27, 2015

Arash31 said:
hi there,

I am looking at adding an octabox to my kit. I don't use strobes. I have a set of Nikon Speedlights (910 and SB700). Would appreciate your help on the following:

1. From what I understand Profoto and Elinchrom Octaboxes are meant to be used with their lighting system. Would they work with my speed light?

2. My intention is to be able to have on the location Octaboxes to take a 3/4 length photos of 1-4 people. For that I was looking at two of the following:

A. Elinchrom 39" Deep

B. Elinchrom 39" min Octobox

C. Profoto 3' Octa

D. Profoto 3x2 Softbox

Again, would want to be able to use these with my Nikon Speedlights. Your help is appreciated in advance.

Thanks

1. Softboxes are designed to be used with speed rings, most are interchangeable or in the case of the Elinchrom Rotalux softboxes you can buy a ring for most other brands.

2. One problem with using a speedlight in a studio modfiier is it's not designed for it, a studio head tends to have a fully exposed bulb while a speedlight has a narrower beam of light which won't evenly illuminate the front of the softbox.

Not the end of the world but you're going to spend a fair chunk of change getting Rotalux or RFI softboxes, it's worth considering even a budget head.

John Gress · May 29, 2017

I love the Elinchrom Deep Octa 39!'

I just wrote a blog post discussing why I own both Profoto and Elinchrom octas.

"If you were expecting a side-by-side head-to-head comparison of these modifiers, this review is not for you. Over the course of 10 or so years I have owned 6 different octaboxes made by Profoto, Elinchrom and Photoflex. I will discuss below why I changed horses midstream to arrive at where I am today and how I felt about using each modifier.

http://johngress.com/?p=15991"

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Elinchrom and Profoto Octabox and Speedlights

Arash31

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PenPix

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Nikonparrothead

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jorge elguera

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jorge elguera

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Amazon.com : Godox Witstro AD360 High Power External Portable Flash Set Speedlite Kits : Camera Flash Synch Cords : Electronics

SKersting66

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Arash31

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Simon Barker

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John Gress

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