Powerful Vintage Woof - a photo on Flickriver

            A pair of Metz 60 CT4's, with battery packs upgraded to lithium (MUCH lighter than lead-acid!), and a 60-40 etension head added to each. A few such extensions can be added to each battery pack. A Metz 60 plus a 60-40 has a nominal GN of sqrt(60**2 + 40**2) = 72 at a 35mm (full frame) angle of view and ISO 100. The pair have a GN of 102.
All second hand except for the lithium batteries. Total cost around the same as one of the top super all singing and dancing camera maker's flash guns, and roughly as powerful as roughly 12 of them. At least :-) But of course only usable in manual mode (or for the ingenious and determined, the gun's own presettable auto sensor which assumes it's being used close to the camera position). The CT4's go down to 1/256th manual power, have an optional little front fill (or eye catch-light) flash, and squeak politely when they've recharged.

So how do these compare to the power of a strobe (monolight) which are measured in watt seconds? Apples and oranges since we have to factor in angle of coverage, reflector efficiency, and efficiency of conversion of electric power to light. My best guess so far is that one of these pairs is equivalent to somewhere between 400WS & 800WS.

Yes, those are Cactus V2s radio flash triggers at the end of the mounting bar. They're small enough to fit on the tiny space left on the bar :-) 

There are times when complicated flash lighting problems can be simply solved by having oodles of flash power and bouncing it off the ceiling, wall, door, window blind, shower curtain on a broomstick, etc., plus a small fill flash on the camera. I've lit a church hall event with ceiling bounce with one of these, and thought to myself at the time "I could do with a bit more flash power...". If I really need even more power I've a few more Metz 60s, but with the old very heavy lead acid batteries.

Original:  DSC06634X

Taken on: January 12, 2014

Tags:

flash

gun

CT4

60-40

lithium

cactus

v2s « less

Sets appears in: • Flashy kit • Metz 60 CTn flashguns more » • strobist « less

Groups appears in: • Edinburgh Photographers • UK Strobists more » • Strobist Gear • East Scotland Strobists « less

Camera: Sony SLT-A77V, f/4.0, 1/60 sec, 50mm (=75mm), ISO 500 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony SLT-A77V
Aperture:	f/4.0
Exposure Time:	0.017 sec (1/60)
Focal Length:	50mm (35mm equivalent: 75mm)
ISO:	500
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	On, Return detected
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Contrast:	Low
Saturation:	Low
Sharpness:	Soft
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	SLT-A77V v1.07
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