New gear testing

I haven’t been posting a lot about new gear because it has been incredibly busy but at the moment we are testing some very interesting nice new gear. Make sure to read on…..

Lighttools
I’ve been in contact with the company lighttools in the states just before we went to Florida.
Lighttools develops eggcrates (and more) for softboxes, and because they also have a great solution for the Elinchrom Deep Octa my interest was more than triggered. Communication with the firm was very quick and nice and they send over some samples to our hotel in Tampa which I brought with me to test out. And I can say they are very nice.

I ordered the eggcrate for the Chimera striplight and the Deep Octa.
Both are connected to the softboxes with an extension frame which stays in place on the box and the eggcrate is velcro-ed into that. With other solutions I’ve seen you can see the crates hanging down or there is some light leakage but lighttools clearly done their home work. The fit is very tight and even in extreme angles the eggcrate stays in place, it doesn’t look like a third party attachment and that’s the biggest compliment I can give I think.

The light quality with the deep octa is stunning.
I always loved the deep octa but now it’s even more versatile. I love to angle my light but I also love to tightly control the light, actually that’s one of the reasons I love the deep octa so much, now with the eggcrate in place the way you can really get the light were you want it to go is just plain wonderful.

On the Chimera pro strip the experience is similar as always with eggcrates the light goes were you want it and not an inch further.
Pricing of the units is fair, especially compared to the quality and the pricing of the original material like chimera.

I would say HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Check the blogpost about Nadine to see some samples of the eggcrates in action.
Visit lighttools at www.lighttools.com

Elinchrom mini deep octa
The deep octa just got a little son/daughter was the first reaction I felt when I assembled the mini deep octa. It’s the new 70cm deep octa from Elinchrom and I honestly hope one day there also will be a 1.50 mtr version with even more deepness. The mini deep octa is indeed a smaller version of the incredibly versatile deep octa. It has the same structure but is a lot smaller meaning the light will be more focussed and a bit harder which in my book is no bad thing. I was very enthusiastic when I first heard about the mini deep octa a few months ago. In my opinion it’s the perfect softbox for people with a need for a bit more harder softbox light and people using the Quadra and rangers will just love the compact size of the mini deep octa.
It’s delivered with a white deflector you can put in the center to make the light spread out a bit more. In the workshops this weekend I will make some more images with it and post them in the workshop post.

Elinchrom Speed skyports
I’ve been waiting for these for some time, as soon as I saw the news that they would be released within a few months I’ve been nagging fotoflits to send me a sample, a few weeks ago they were finally here and I love them. First of all they make it possible to raise your sync speed to much higher speeds, remember this is only possible if your camera supports it of course. Some cameras will stay on 1/125 or 1/200 and will never get higher simply due to the design, although in the future that might be a thing of the past.

But there are more changes :
1. a blinking led.
Shows the speed setting (normal/speed) and a good indicator for the battery, it takes away all the guess work if a battery is dead yes or no.
2. connector improved
the connector to the hotshoe is greatly improved, you can now tighten it to the hotshoe. Some people claim the skyports would fall off, and although I never ever experienced anything like that on all my cameras I think it’s something that should have been on the first release.
3. Better switches
Nothing was really wrong with the old ones but the new switches feel a lot more sturdy and work much better.

A great addition to the Elinchrom line up, but it’s not all praises.
The skyport speed is not compatible with the old skyports, well…….
They are but not the way I would have want it.
To use the skyport speed you will have to set it to “standard” and it works flawless with the RX, want to use it on the Quadra/BXri etc. you can set it to speed, but remember to change the C setting on the strobes to support the speed setting. Because I also use Ranger RX’s I really don’t like the fact that I can in essence sell my old triggers and replace them with the RX version of the Skyport speed that will be released soon. On the other hand Elinchrom must have had a real good reason and at least you can switch back to “standard” mode so I’m not 100% happy with this but I suppose it’s a technical limitation so in that case it’s understandable.

Phase one DF with 80mm LS lens
Can’t really show anything of this combo yet because I got it just before I went to Florida. Mainly upgraded because of the option to use the Leaf Shutter lenses so I can sync up to 1/1600 with the combination. I can’t wait to drag the quadra outside and fight the sun with a real shallow DOF this opens a lot of options I always wanted to have but couldn’t due to the limitations of the 1/125 xsync on the Mamiya AFD series and Canon DSLR.

The camera itself is improved in a lot of small departments.
The grip I like more on the AFD/III but to be honest after a few weeks working with it I’m now used to it and it’s a very nice grip. What I especially like is the new shutterbutton, it really responds very quickly, this resulted especially at first in images take to early, it’s just too sensitive compared to the AFD/III but after a few days you get used to it and switching back to the AFD/III gives you a feeling of pressing way too hard on the shutterbutton.

The camera shows incredible sharpness and detail, the AF is clearly superior again to the AFD/III but don’t expect leaps forward, it’s subtle but combined with the new shutterbutton it gives you a very nice system to work with. Especially the 80mm f2.8 LS lens from Schneider I can highly recommend. I love the detail of the RZ67ProII always above the AFD/III and DF but the Schneider 80mm comes incredibly close it’s really pin sharp and focusses very quickly.

For portrait photographers there now also is vertical grip and a version with build in Pocketwizard triggers (why not Skyport guys ?). I will try to test the vertical grip soon and report back how that works, the main reason for the vertical grip would be that you can use accupacks and update the firmware of the camera yourself, and not to forget to shoot vertical 😀
That’s it for now, if you want to comment please do.
I will place a copy of this post on the forum at www.doorhof.nl/blog