New CraftLine 400 flashes in action
authors: Plamena Koeva and Nikolay Abadzhiev - Nixon
At the end of 2012, the "Four Paws" foundation and actor Yosif Surchadzhiev visited our studio to work on the joint charity project "Take Me Home", organized by the foundation. In addition to the joyful madness with the participation of a bunch of people and animals – the session was also a short test drive of the CraftLine 400 monoblocks, provided by Dynaphos for the occasion.
The client's wish was to achieve more dramatic lighting and a relatively dark background, so we quickly decided on the lighting scheme. A classic and simple scheme with soft key lighting, sharp backlighting, and well-balanced fill light.
For key lighting, we chose a large octagonal softbox (120 cm diameter), because its reflection in the model's eye looks more pleasant than the "square" of a standard rectangular softbox. The power setting was approximately 300WS, which provided the desired exposure at aperture 8.
Backlighting was provided by a second monoblock, on whose standard (18 cm) reflector barn doors were mounted to restrict light from hitting the background. The monoblock was reduced to 125WS.
For fill lighting, a third monoblock with an 80x120cm rectangular softbox was used. Although we rarely practice "smothering with softboxes" – there are situations where using a reflector for fill is not the best idea for several reasons. The power of this monoblock varied considerably during the session, but generally did not exceed 200WS. A dark grey paper background was used, 2 meters behind the models.
Overall, the CraftLine 400 exceeded our expectations for this class of unit in several parameters: impressively fast recycling, good active cooling, and a very stable tripod mounting system that allows for problem-free use of heavy accessories.
The flash test and photos were taken by Plamena Koeva and Nikolay Abadzhiev - Nixon
