New Fun things

I bought another fun piece of photo gear today. A local photographer who'd closed her business last year let me know she still had some gear left for sale. I went by her house and found the Photogenic strobe she had left. For $65, she was mine.

It's a PowerLight 375, which means it's a light that uses 375 Watt-seconds of electrity when at full power. A watt-second is used in lighting to express how much light a unit puts out, which is insane to me considering it takes no account for how efficient or inefficient the thing is. Basically, a 400 WS light is a small one, an 800 is medium, and a 1600 is kinda powerful. They go up to 3200 and well beyond, though.

I took it home and let her rip a few times. The light works very well when fired as an optical slave (photo-speak for firing a flash by telling it to go when it sees another flash). The stand was rather unstable, so I replaced it with one I already had for holding reflectors.

All I need to make it the perfect addition to my kit is to replace the power cord (nicked in a few places) and buy an umbrella to soften the light. I plan on using it as a kicker light, again photo-speak, and put it off to the side to fill the shadows created by my main light, which I'm going to be purchasing in the near future. I still need to make some decisions on that.

Also, a teleconverter (TC) I'm renting will arrive in the mail tomorrow. I ordered it because I'm considering buying one, but I want to try one out first. A TC is a small lens that goes between the lens and the camera and the main lens and increases the its focal length (magnification) without much weight and not costing too much. The downside is that it sacrifices some light and some sharpness.

A new one costs $275, but it's $45 to rent it for three weeks. We'll see what happens.