Profoto vs White Lightning vs Elinchrom Results

[Ted_Wilson]

Since I see a lot of people struggle with the decision to buy strobes, I thought I'd test my lights since I have a variety of them at my disposal. I work for a studio that rents gear so we have a variety. I did the test in our studio with only the strobes modeling lamp on and I used the same Chimera 3'x4' softbox with a white interior. I also tested with the standard reflectors and achieved similar results so I didn't feel the need to post these results. I used a Sekonic meter for the f/stop reading and a Minolta Color meter to read the Color Temperature. As you can see the lights are all very similar in output and CT variation with the power settings. I tested each light three times at each setting to check for consistency and the second and third flash all remained true to the first reading.


The quality of light from the Profoto and Elinchrom was smoother with the standard reflectors than the WL, but they all were identical when placed in a softbox.

Here's the results.

Profoto Compact 600 Plus Monolights @ 6’/ Chimera 3’x4’ Softbox white interior

Power - Color Temperature - F/Stop

1/1 - 5070*K - f/32
1/2 - 4990*K - f/22
1/4 - 4920*K - f/16
1/8 - 4830*K - f/11
1/16 - 4720*K - f/6.7

White Lightning x1600 w/UV tubes @ 6’ / Chimera 3’x4’ Softbox white interior

Power - Color Temperature - F/Stop

1/1 - 5220*K - f/32
1/2 - 5090*K - f/22
1/4 - 5020*K - f/16
1/8 - 4970*K - f/13
1/16 - 4880*K - f/8
1/32 - 4800*K - f/5.6

Elinchrom Style 600 S @ 6’/ Chimera 3’x4’ Softbox white interior

Power - Color Temperature - F/Stop

1/1 - 5090*K - f/27
1/2 - 4920*K - f/19
1/4 - 4830*K - f/16
1/8 - 4760*K - f/11
1/16 - 4720*K - f/8
1/32 - 4620*K - f/5.6

Ted W.

[robert_baker]

Thanks Ted....that is very helpful. 'Preciate your efforts.

[Steven_lin]

This is great, Ted. BTW, were the color temperatures without the softbox warmer or cooler?

[Ted_Wilson]

CT without the softbox were cooler. Here's the starting and ending values for CT with just the standard reflector.

White Lightning at full power started at 5570*K and dropped to 5120*K @ 1/32 power.

Elinchrom @ full power 5440*K and dropped to 4890*K @ 1/32 power.

Profoto @ full power 5420*K and dropped to 5060*K @ 1/16 power

Ted W.

[JackBingham]

So it is important to note that while film would not be a problem with these color variations, digital cameras are far more sensitive. I just did some testing for a presentation because I have been saying that 100 degrees was significant on digital. Well i was wrong about that. 50 degrees is significant!

[Daniel_Bottner]

Can you qunatify in some way what you consider siginificant color shift in digital images.

I had not considered this in the past; now I am tempeted to do some color chart comparisons and get a handle on color shift in terms of adverage deltaE values.

Thanks, for sharing ...

Daniel [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Bern_Caughey]

[ QUOTE ]
Can you qunatify in some way what you consider siginificant color shift in digital images.

I had not considered this in the past; now I am tempeted to do some color chart comparisons and get a handle on color shift in terms of adverage deltaE values.

[/ QUOTE ]

Almost anything you do to modify a light will cause a CT shift. Unless your shooting Pantone charts I don't think there is much to worry about. A CT meter can be useful in many scenarios, especially with mixed lighting or with a setting sun, but nothing beats seeing the scene on a computer's screen & I imagine most photographers still aren't using CT meters.

Outside of a very few picky clients, absolute color accuracy has never been much of a consideration. If your client really needs to match a color, they almost always will be tweaking it in post. EPR 64 has a reputation of being the most color accurate emulsion, but how many of us always shot that film. Digital's sensitivity reminds me of EPR, except we almost always had to filter the chrome.

Do you really want perfect color & if so, what is perfect color? Helmut Newton used to shoot any film other than Kodachrome, dismissing it because it "looks too pretty". Someone once wanted to show Melvin Sokolsky how to emulate Velvia with Photoshop, but he responded "I don't want Velvia, I want Melvia".

Regards,
Bern Caughey