The world of travel ready strobes has rapidly changed over the last several years with the market going from big and heavy strobe/power pack kits that were a pain to get anywhere, to great solutions like Profoto’s B1 (and now B2) systems. Elinchrom announced today their take on the portable strobe kit, and they are calling it the ELB400.
Unlike what other companies are doing, Elinchrom decided to stick with the head/pack design of previous generations, but put it together in a small lightweight package that is sure to excel at on-location photography.
Some improvements, which bring the ELB400 in line with the rest of the market, include a faster recycle time of 1.6 seconds, and the addition of Hyper-Sync capability are notable. The ELB 400 will come with two head options: the Pro head and the Action head.
The new ELB400’s will also feature Elinchrom’s latest Skyport radio triggering built in, a huge plus for anyone who triggers their strobe wirelessly (which is almost everyone these days, I would think).
Currently, the new ELB400’s are slated for an April release. No official price point has been announced as of yet, but I would expect somewhere around the $2000 mark for the single head kit, if I had to make a bet.
If you are interested in learning more about the new Elinchrom ELB400 lights, you can head on over to Elinchrom’s website to get all the details.
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Am I missing something? These don’t seem too much different that the current Quadra Kit with A heads. Are these packs just a lot smaller?
It’s a decent update of the Ranger Quadra, especially for sports/action shooters. (Yes, you do need more than one to make it work, but the Sequence mode means you get high power and high FPS at the same time.) It’s too bad that they didn’t do capacitor bank-switching like they do in the ELC HDs (to reduce duration while maintaining colour), but I guess there’s only so much you can do in a tiny box. I’d like to see what they have in store for the big Ranger (whether they’ll drop it, put the pack into the head, or what).
You need to be a top notch wedding photographer or portrait photographer to justify a 2000 dollar battery flash system like this. Most clients cannot tell the difference. The market sort of forces us to keep buying expensive equipment. I am going to invest in Marketing instead and get the most money I can from my current speedlights.
Clients might not tell the difference but there is a difference in using quality gear that is well thought out & easy to get set right – for the photographer.
This is where the value is in these high end products.
It’s not only a quality and ease of use issue and Kevin points out. There are technical reasons for expensive flash systems. There are things you will be able to do with flashes with a lot of power and fast flash durations that you can’t do with less expensive and slower flashes.
seriously guys look into the Phottix system indra 500/360 series.
TTL, HSS(up to 1/8000) for a much better price than both this and profoto
Ive been using them for 3 months now and can’t be happier.
Yeah Jonathan, I’ve been really impressed with what Phottix has been doing. They are sorta the ‘Sigma’ of lighting right now.
Same as Profoto, out of my league…
I think it has Hyper-Sync not High-Speed-Sync like the Profoto B1 or B2 or am I wrong?
http://wiki.pocketwizard.com/?title=Understanding_HyperSync_and_High_Speed_Sync
Yes, typo/morning brain to blame here. Updating post now. Thanks for pointing that out.
Intersting news but the price is … mamma mia!!!