dkthompson

Fwiw Promark is the company that bought Quantum. They hold lumedyne as well as Speedotron, Norman and Photogenic. You can still get some of this stuff and repairs as well as support here in US

the thyristor still worked with those unless the big reflector was used. I guess you could have used the sensor on the extension cord that Vivitar offered as a workaround. The early Q flashes had an auto sensor that worked well. I had a small system of those years ago that ran off the turbos.

here-there's a lot of stuff like this in that book and ideas for using Lumedyne as well as Dynalites. anecdotes from editorial photogs as well. a lot of grip tips. of course these 283 mods sound a lot like a Q flash. or the AD200 that you use now.

That metal shoe mod on the 283s was done by a vendor who did the bare bulb mod for the 283

He was the picture editor for the Philadelphia Daily News and had been a PJ in the northeast. Became specialized in location lighting and big sets. He was a consultant for Dynalite, Kodak and Lowel. Did these seminars around country for NPPA and ASMP. He was colorful. “Strobe on a rope” is his

the best lighting seminar I ever went to was by Jon Falk at the NPPA Southern Short Course. of course his slides were a little primitive. this is the guy who marketed the "underdog" batteries, did mods on 283s to make them bare tube or pencil lights etc. a lot of dynalite locations sets also.

cool. the guy I worked with for years went to one as well. he had this swatch book of set concepts he brought back and for years he talked about it.

First Baptist Church on Edenton Street, window at dusk, Raleigh NC, Oct. 2, 2024. DK Thompson Collection/Southern Folklife Collection/UNC-CH

First Baptist Church on Edenton Street, window at dusk, Raleigh NC, Oct. 2, 2024. DK Thompson Collection/Southern Folklife Collection/UNC-CH

my dad had one of those when I was growing up. at the time those were highly rated consumer zooms.

or get the ND filters as Wrattens. I have a bunch of these, mainly CC filters, left over from my view camera days. this one I used on a slide duper. Wrattens are optically pure, typically with view cameras you put them at back element. for others, they go on front. I have a spring holder and thread

have the same problem. if it's larger than the lens, just use some gaffer tape. or handhold. it doesn't have to be perfect. you'd be surprised the shit you can get away with if something really needs to be done and you have to make do with what's on hand.

a polarizer can work sometimes. eats up about a stop and half.

I do. Remember those workshops he used to do. We shoot a variety of objects and sizes. I like scrims actually more than softboxes because they’re flexible. When I assisted in furniture market studios they used large scrims overhead as “top light” and general fill. Then hard for accents

the dept in archives uses the Speedotron force 10s. Those aren’t made anymore but have that neat 202 head. What we did get at work was a ten foot scrim and well put like 2-3 heads thru it and you get this great soft bank. Good on top also. Use c stands and matthelini clamps

I know it seems like you’d lose power from the length but that’s how they do it. I used the 200b’s taped to wall behind goals. Mainly I did football and used the long throw reflector for that. Used to get f8 with Tri X out to about fifty feet and would keep up with anMD12. No pushing it was great

So like we interviewed for a new hire a couple of years ago and my takeaway from about 20 interviews is that people don’t know how to light anymore. They can learn. Some are naturals. But in school and out on their own? Not so much

So I bought a used 1600 ws ehlincrom but of course that’s heavy as hell. I knew a guy (rip) who worked at Alderman Studio and they had a huge Chimera overhead bank with like a dozen 102 heads that ran off half dozen 2400 packs. They shot cars and stuff on cyc

I know I know same here. I have one of those huge Chimeras that I bought out of desperation at work for a project when my order never went thru the procurement system in govt okay another story… but then at home the 1000 watt packs I have are too wimpy for that thing. I have a 4040 head but no pack

at dean dome they had them in basement. heads were on a catwalk. guy I knew from SI shot ektachrome 100 with a Hasselblad EL. We bought one of his chromes and made a huge cibatrans from it back in the day. Tack sharp, low grain. He had a little taped off reserve spot and plugged into wall

can’t tell you how many circuit breakers and fuses we’ve tripped over years using Speedotrons on location.

rig at another institution. you see less pack & head systems these days, more mono. Profoto is just too expensive for me and I don’t need all that stuff for most part I just want power and the ability to isolate it down. Dependability and replacement parts. Something that doesn’t blow fuses

think they use the 4800 packs for that work but that’s really out of my line of work. was told by a sales rep at another vendor that pro teams are keeping them in business so somebody is still doing that stuff. Hensel I am not sure. Still see their stuff occasionally. Saw some used in digitization

For Nikon you can use their “dust off reference” option from menu and use Nikon Capture NX to access and process. For a long time we’d do that back with D2x and D3 era. Now I just deal with it or leave them there. The dust off ref file works though

The other photo dept chose broncolor for color accuracy. The Speedotrons shift color usually to magenta as you power down so this is an issue. We’re a history museum and not fine art reproduction so it’s more of an annoyance

When Dynalite went under I went to ehlinchrom. I have both, but started to give away the dynas. Gotta have the ability to get tubes. If I had my own studio I’d do Speedotron. Fast lenses it just depends on person. I use Fuji X pros and their primes for a lot of my own work. I prefer fast lenses

Btw we bought a new 2400 pack from speedotron last year and I was told that stadiums are still being wired up for those packs. I know at Dean Dome they just left them there. I knew a SI shooter in town & he’d just plug right in. Speedotron is still chugging away. Great customer service

I don’t do sports anymore. Not my thing but I still use Speedotrons at work, Dynalite and Elinchrom at home. Most of the photo departments in agency I work for use speedotrons but one switched to broncolor which are more expensive than Profoto

the trick is with recycling speeds and trigger speeds. High power packs dialed down for short output. Elinchrom and Hensel are two options other than Profoto. Elinchrom Quadra used to be pretty popular options

I knew a guy who worked for NCSU and used Dynalite 2000 packs and their quad heads because they were lighter weight. Now I know a stringer for the N&O who uses Buff Einsteins to light games. He uses about 4+ I think lighting from sides instead of above. You can get more punch now with high iso

I used Norman 200Bs and Vivitar 283s paired with Quantum Battery 1 packs. In 1990 I bought into Dynalite. A lot of the papers in my area were using Speedotron black line packs and quad heads for ACC & NCAA basketball. They still do actually.