One of the products on my must-see list when I set off to PhotoPlus Expo was Broncolor’s new Move 1200 battery pack. It was officially announced a few months back at Photokina but with a spring 2013 launch scheduled there hasn’t been an opportunity for me to take a look until last week. As many of you who read this site often are aware, I currently have an Elinchrom Ranger system. It’s a bit long in the tooth though. In fact, I don’t think they have updated it in about ten years so these days there are better options. Faster, lighter options and the Move 1200 is just one of these.
When it was announced, I watched the official video with interest (see below) but it was only when I had a chance to get a closer look and a chat with their product manager that I discovered an almost endless list of interesting features I wasn’t yet aware of. I’ve no doubt that this is the most advanced portable strobe pack on the market, or at least soon to be on the market.
LEDs
With this pack, Broncolor has taken note that these days photographers are also shooting video. The corresponding head has a daylight 5500K balanced LED lamp that can be powered indefinitely when the pack is plugged into mains power What is fantastic though is that you can also take off the removable battery packs from the move and plug the head directly into the battery to power the LED. All of a sudden, if you don’t need your strobe you have a supremely portable battery-powered LED for video shooting. They even include a belt pack for the battery so you can have it even more mobilized! If you don’t want to plug it into the battery there is an adapter that allows you to plug the head directly into the mains power supply for continuous LED light all day long. Amazing flexibility for what you would normally think of as a secondary feature. With Broncolor though this is designed to be a highly useable video light source.
Featureset
The bright LCD screen offers a myriad of information to the shooter that can be adjusted to your needs. For example, do you want to see flash duration as t 0.1 or t 0.5? For action sports, being able to view the duration for a specific power level is a key feature. Two heads can be used and the power output is completely asymmetric and adjustable in a 9-stop range, producing durations as low a 1/20,000 of a second. In Econo mode, the battery will provide 230 full-power flashes and about 180 in a faster recycle mode. Both those numbers compare extremely well to the competition and the Lithium battery is remarkably small and light. I’d say half the size weight of my current Elinchrom battery. Overall the unit is also smaller and lighter.
The whole thing is chock full of other clever design features as well. Such as the integrated mini reflector on the MobiLED head that reverses to become the protective cap for transportation. When the pack is available next year it will come with a trolley backpack for wheeling around, as well as a weatherproof soft case to shield it from the elements. The decision was made to use a protective bag around the pack instead of making the pack itself fully weatherproof as that would have added considerable extra cost. As well as the multiple carrying solutions, the kit will come with the belt pack and LED mains adapter mentions above, and an optional kit with the Para 88 modifier or various softbox & umbrella combinations.
The Move 1200 was every bit as impressive in person as it sounded from the spec list. More so in fact when you take into account the innovative use of the LEDs for offering adaptable video solutions from the kit you already have. The build quality was also extremely impressive and the recycle time…. well that was really what I liked to see. I don’t have any exact figures but this pack, when powered down to say 300J should be able to keep up with the fastest shooting speeds of most cameras on the market right now. My current setup has recycle time measured in seconds, the Move 1200 is measure in tenths of seconds or even less.
Pricing hasn’t been officially announced yet but let’s not kid ourselves, this is going to be pretty pricey gear, though it can certainly afford to be when it offers the kind of performance, build and long feature list that I saw. Highly impressive and I will definitely be trying this out over the winter at some point!
“…let us not kid ourselves, this is going to be pretty pricey gear, though it can certainly afford to be when it offers the kind of performance, build and long feature list that I saw….”
Since we’re in agreement that we’re not gonna kid ourselves, let’s just say that the days of having to spend around $5K for a portable pack & battery (sorry kids…no head for that price!) are kind of over! I’m sure this thing is very groovy, even with the typical Broncolor design quirks that make me scratch my head (like why the Hell did they position the head plugs so that the cables will be aimed DOWN when their plugged into the pack?!!) but the cash outlay just doesn’t make sense! I suppose if you spend your life shooting supermodels for High Priced clients who actually know what Broncolor is, in locations where there is no A/C, this might be an option, but there are plenty of ways to skin that cat without having to take out a mortgage or sell a kidney! I mean, it’s not as blingy or elegant as the Broncolor, but two Einsteins and a couple of Vagabond Mini’s would give you more power, the same portability, just as crazy-fast flash durations and the whole shebang would come in at around $1500…..
It really depends on your usage. I know as well as Broncolor does that this isn’t a solution for most people. With that said, the majority of my commercial work is done in mountains accessed by helicopters or snowmobiles. Battery power is a must. I currently shoot with an Einstein and an Elinchrom Ranger so I know where you are coming from.
You can get crazy durations with Einstein, it’s true, but what you cannot get is the fast recycle time. For battery powered packs the only two packs that can recycle in what I would call a ‘fast’ time , ie on a level with a studio pack, are the Move 1200 and the new Profoto B4 Air. The B4 Air is looking to come in at $8000 for the pack only. So when these two packs hit the market it will be the first time that such a product exists and I plan on using them for a number of images that were not technically possible before. This does open new doors and NO you don’t have to own them, there are rental houses for these guys in most big cities so for a few hundred bucks you can get the job done.
On big commercial jobs clients expect a line item for rented gear anyway so it’s really not an issue with price on a big job.
From what I can tell…at least until I get my hands on a Move pack…aside from having the benefit of generations of efficiently soulless Swiss design, the only practical advantage of the thing is its faster recycle time. It’s spec sheet says 1.9 seconds at full power. A full-power (640w/s) Einstein on a Vagabond takes three seconds. That’s an extra second for roughly half the power, but wait…the 640w/s Einstein probably has an actual light output a lot closer to the Broncolor’s 1200w/s head because it’s not losing any of that power through 15 feet of head cable. Back in the day, I had a bunch of my heads ‘pigtailed’…we cut the cables down to only one foot in length to make them easier to pack and then used head extension cables to get the length back…and we found out that when we plugged the heads into a pack directly without the extension cable we gained almost 3/4 stop. So assuming the power loss to be in that range, an Einstein’s output should be pretty darned close to the 1200w/s Move. If that’s the case, you really hafta ask yourself if it’s worth the incredibly large jump in expense for only a 1 second gain in recycle time. Add in the fact that a Vagabond gives you 400-500 full power shots per charge and an extra battery will only set you back 90 bucks and beside lighting up your strobes it will also power your laptop and charge your cellphone, and I still think for the majority of location photographers it’s still a smarter choice. And not for nuthin’, but I bill my clients for my gear whether I own it or not, so of I can own an extensive Einstein kit for a quarter of the cost of an entry level Broncolor setup and still bill it to my client, that’s a win-win every time.
By the way…I’m not trying to be a contrarian…I love checking out new gear as much as the next guy. It’s just that from a practical standpoint, a lot of stuff just makes no financial sense. I think the Broncolor Para umbrellas are amazing…but who in their right mind would actually spend 12 Grand for one of the things? The Scoro packs are undoubtedly the most well designed strobes in the world, and if you have a Saudi Prince for a father, you might be able to afford one. Broncolor makes some really beautiful toys, but I live and work in the real world.
Well we’ll agree to disagree then. I don’t see a problem with it if you rent it. Most people rent them so…..
Comparing recycle times based on full power setting is not useful either. Just like comparing flash duration at full power would be. It’s not a linear duration/power relationship and the situations I’m talking about are shooting at 10fps or thereabouts. From what I tried I was able to get the Move 1200 shooting at 10fps at an acceptably large power. As an owner of an Einstein I can tell you I’ve not managed to achieve that.
If the Move can do something the Einstein can’t then it certainly makes sense to use it on a job that requires that. That’s all I’m going to be saying on the matter.
I have to agree on the Paras, though. Those are amazingly expensive for a light modifier.
Two Einstein units are 1000, with a vagabond mini is 1240. The Vagabonds, however, are not nearly as robust or efficient. They are not designed to power the modeling lights either. They are also designed to be replaced every few years, where the move pack is designed to last ten or more years. Also, while yes you can get the same power with two Einstein heads, you can’t easily fit two Einsteins in a single softbox. The Einsteins also have their shorter durations at much lower power levels, so with the Move pack you can have fast durations with higher power. That’s where the cost difference comes in to play.
I’d imagine that the cables are aimed “down” in order to create a drip loop.