Square curves

Here are a few more Shots from my last shoot with Rigmor, working with the Westcott focusable spot.

One downside of this modifier is its poor heat dissipation.

You can “only” use up to 800Ws of flash and a modest amount of modeling light before things get risky, and it's very hard to see what you are doing while working.

This is a BTS from the last shot:
Notice how dim the square is, and how much more light you can see on the back of my camera, let alone my (normal) office light. I even have to maintain a bit of light in the ceiling to even be able to focus.

The last time I used this, I got a bit too eager, shot too fast, blew the thermostat fuse, and heard a crackling sound from the flash head.
At which point I decided to abort the shoot.

The lens it comes with is a 110mm, which means that for a full-figure shot, say 2m/7’, the lamp needs to be about 10 meters away.

On 400 ISO, that means I can get around ƒ. 4

It’s workable, and I can remove the grain, but it's far from ideal.

However:
 I just found someone selling a second-hand Elinchrom Focusable Spotlight (Flash not included) for $200 and snapped it up.

I had been looking at the ditto Profoto, but this seems to be almost identical, but the price point is much better, and it was even delivered with a Profoto lamp head adapter.

Looking into it beforehand before hitting BUY button, I found these specs:

• With a 1200Ws head, it reaches ƒ. 22 at 2m ISO 100

• Produces a 60cm beam at minimum spot from 2m

• Produces a 1m beam at max flood from 2m

So from 6m away with 1200ws, I should be able to achieve ƒ8 at ISO 100. And get around the same size "portal" as the image above with Wiana.

Plus, I can throw a 2400ws flash in it, and still not worry about overheating.

Compared with what I shot these with, the saying, “Never make a boy do a man's work,” comes to mind.

I haven’t had a chance to shoot anything with it yet, but it looks promising - Stay tuned for results!