elinchrom elb1200 to go set
Outgun the sun with Elinchrom’s powerful new portable flash kits. Prepare to be dazzled...
Shooting outdoors, you’re at the mercy of the weather. Under glaring sunshine, the best you can really hope for from a regular flashgun is to fill in a few shadows up close. Elinchrom’s new ELB 1200 system aims to deliver vastly more power and versatility, while still being manageable for the long haul. The new kits are based around a relatively lightweight yet robust and weather-resistant power pack. It weighs in at 4.3kg, including an easily interchangeable Li-ion ‘Air’ battery, with enough juice to deliver 215 full-power flashes, or up to 80 minutes of full-power constant lighting for shooting video. The latter comes courtesy of highperformance, daylight-balanced LEDS, that can also work as a proportional modelling lamp. An optional ‘HD’ battery boosts the range to 400 flashes and 120 minutes of video, at maximum power settings, with an increase in weight from 1.1kg to 1.5kg.
Each kit includes with a single flash head, of which there are three types. The Pro head is designed for general use, with a flash duration of up to 1/5050s, while the Hi-sync head offers flash sync well beyond the camera’s regular maximum sync speed, right up to a shutter speed of 1/8000th of a second. Finally, the Action head delivers super-fast flash durations of up to 1/8850s for freezing even the fastest action, but with a lower maximum power.
All three kits come in ‘To Go’ and ‘To Roll’ options, the latter swapping one of the two high-quality carrying bags for a roller case, at an additional cost of £200/$250. Each kit also contains a power pack, battery, mains charger, 4m flash cable and varying accessories. The Pro and Action kits include a Skyport Transmitter Plus, which slots into your camera’s hotshoe to enable wireless control and triggering of the flash system. With the Hi-sync kit, you’d need to purchase the more up-market, Canon-dedicated Skyport Transmitter Plus ‘HS’ separately, at an additional cost of £220/$250.
Performance
It’s easy to control one or two flash heads from the power pack, thanks to a wonderfully intuitive interface based around an OLED display
The Elinchrom ELB1200 flash heads can freeze fast action shots or, with the HS head, offer flash sync at speeds up to 1/8000 sec
screen. The sheer power of the heads is epic, but recycling speeds are very quick too. In our tests with the Action head, recycling was practically instantaneous in the lower half of the power range, and either 2.6, 4.0 or 1.9 seconds after a full-power flash, in ‘normal, eco and fast’ modes. Power output can be adjusted through an 8.5 f/stop range, in 1/10th f/stop increments. At minimum power, battery life extends to a whopping 20,000 or 36,000 flashes with the Air and HD batteries respectively. Naturally, battery life is reduced if you run two heads from the same power pack, in which case flash strengths can be adjusted equally or in a 2:1 ratio.
We had to make sure the latest firmware was on our Elinchrom Skyport Plus HS trigger. Also, when shooting at high shutter speeds with the Hi-sync head, we experienced some banding – dark or light strips across the bottom of the frame – but to fix this we just had to make sure