Which Strobe Has The Shortest Flash Duration: Profoto, Broncolor, or Einstein?

In a world filled with portable speedlights and 3200 watt power packs, photographers might overlook another critical feature of their studio lights: flash duration. Basically flash duration is the time your strobe light contributes to the exposure of your photograph (flash actually can act as “constant light”). Earlier this year, we posted about Broncolor’s flash duration compared to Profoto, but how does a much cheaper strobe like the Einstein compare? The results are pretty remarkable!

You’ve probably seen Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz’s amazing “water clothing” photographs. His most impressive angel dress image is currently being used as an advertising piece for Paul Buff’s Einstein power packs. Jaroslav recently tested the Einstein in his studio by creating a real world type fashion image. By testing the Einstein’s shortest flash durations at different power levels, Jaroslav was able to capture extremely sharp particles of water that often would be blurry if shot with longer amounts of light (we are talking milliseconds here). How did the Einstein compare to other flagship lighting systems by Profoto and Broncolor? Here are his results:

View Jaroslav’s full results on his blog.

While the Einstein still doesn’t compare in power to the Profoto Pro-8 Air or the Broncolor Scoro A4S, it wipes the floor with the fastest t1 Flash Duration of the three. And while the other two setups start at around $13,000, the P.C. Buff Einstein can be had for about $700!

We here at Fstoppers use both PC Buff Einsteins and Profoto Airs, and nothing compares to the quality of the Profoto stuff. That being said, it’s so nice to throw a couple Einsteins in the back of your car and not worry about breaking the bank if they get destroyed by sand or water from a beach shoot. Back when we did the indoor studio wakeboard shoot, I used Dynalites which are not known for their fast flash duration. You can check out the full video to see how I lit the final images, but here is an example of what a slow flash duration will do to fast moving water. You can see how some of the slower water is perfectly sharp but the moving water drops have little tails caused by the Dynalite’s longer flash duration.

If you want to read more about flash duration especially relating to these Einstein units, check out Rob Galbraith’s indepth article.

-Via Strobist.com