Now on to the main event the new Elinchrom Quadra! After first reading about this new addition to the Elinchrom family I have been eagerly devouring every snippet of information on the new light. Frank Doorhofs Youtube video's and his forum, being one of the best. I was just about to jump in on the Ranger sets when this little beauty arrived on the scene and threw me into a quandry. Being a devout strobist when it comes to location lighting the philosophy that 'small and light is right' made the Quadra look to be right up my street!
Now the biggest debates I have read on the forums was is the Quadra capable of over powering the sun like the Rangers are capable of? As I had my new project under way which involved location lighting in the middle of the day this was highly relevant to me and the reason I was about to buy a Ranger but no one could really provide the definitive answer. Many stating simply, if that is what you want to do then buy a Ranger Pack.
I eventually stumbled on a German photography companies blog that did a great job of trying to equate what 400w of power meant in real money compared to top of the range speedlights. Their findings were that they saw the Quadra as being equivelent to four speed lights with the Flash Centre, the importers of Elinchrom products in the UK, suggesting to me during a phone conversation that they worked out it was around the equivelent to six. Check out the German guys site here a great site by the way full of information and help regarding lighting and shooting techniques.
Now I'm a great believer of always working to the worst case scenario so four speedlights I knew could over power the sun on at least a two subject shoot at a reasonable working distance but not without a lot of accessories and expensive triggering systems. Also you need to purchase fairly expensive adapted for speedlights specialised light modifiers to accommodate them so this is what made my mind up to buy the Quadra.
I went for the two head kit being the A heads which gives you a considerable saving over buying all the items included separately. Also it gives you everything to easily expand your system into a two light unit with just the purchase of an extra control box.
For the small extra outlay I highly recommend that you buy the A heads or action heads over the standard S heads as they give a faster flash duration. Remember in a controlled light situation with little ambiant it is the flash duration that has far more influance in freezing your subject than your chosen shutter speed, so it is important and also I am going to start a conspiracy theory that Elinchrom might have a new flash setting in the pipeline which I need to dig deeper into first.
Once you have the Quadra in your hands you really appreciate the size of this unit. The overt use of plastics in the heads did leave me with the impression that they may not take that much abuse and the lugs of the fitting bayonet may wear in time. I do try to look after my kit as opposed to a lot of over pros who really don't give a damn but unfortunatley in the heat of working against time it always takes knocks so only time will tell. To be honest the weight can only really be kept so low by the use of plastic and realistically they are no different to the construction of speedlights which are capable of taking a fair bit of abuse.
The rest of the kit seems little different to the Ranger units and felt very well made and capable of taking the knocks of everyday use. Again I must state this is not going to be a technical review as if your interested in getting a Quadra I'm sure your already up to speed on the technical side and specs. Rather this is a real life working review of the unit used in anger. If you use Elinchrom Rangers already the control layout will be fairly familier however, I think considering the price and the ease to manufacturer a circuit board to control the settings I would think they could of come up with an easier menu. Surely it does not cost much more to have your display show off or on rather than 1 or 0 even if it is meant to be sold world wide. I'm sure off & on is more understandible than 1 or 0 in whichever language you may speak also the display could state what exactly you are changing. To further rant the cost of incorporating various language options must be cheap as chips to provide in a unit that costs around £700! There are sub menus buried in menus which require several button pushes to get to which you have to keep refering to the manual to remember what to push until eventually, its burnt into your memory. To be fair most of the settings once set don't need to be touched again however, spend any time away from using the unit and it is all forgotten again!
The ability to use the asymetrical outputs is I'm sure of use in some situations but I have found that I have rarely used this in real life shoots. The main limitation being the length of the cables. You can purchase longer ones but I tend to prefer the ease of using a speedlight as a second or third light source. This brings me back to the main reason for buying the two head kit. Once the funds are available and the better half gives me her permission I will purchase a second control unit which is the main cost of the system at I think around the £700 mark but it's hard to verify as very few UK suppliers list it at the moment. Once you have this you have everything available in the two head kit to make up a second unit which is infinitely more usable than the asymmetrical system with its 33%/66% power split.
The Skyport system is excellent and works well with the inbuilt Skyport in the Quadra head unit. So far no duff triggers in the field within normal working distances. One other key function of the Quadra is the ability to sync with your speedlight as a slave and fire on the last of your preflashes which you can either enter if you know the amount or it has a learning mode to fiqure it out itself.
The RQ-EL adaptor to allow the use of Elinchrom light shapers is not really up to the job in my opinion. At around £69 the ability to only go up to supporting the 135cm Octa which, admittingly, I have not tried is unforgivable. However, even the 60cm Lastolite Ezybox takes a fair amount of torque to hold it secure so a 135 Octa would require an amount of tightning to certainly make me feel uneasy that somthing may give. The weak point is the clamp which is mainly plastic and unable to torque to the required pressure. For the cost of making it out of metal which I'm sure they could of done within the cost or if not, I would of quite happily paid the extra £10 for a metal clamp. The weight argument is a none issue as the use of the large modifiers would mainly be for studio use and besides, if I should require these larger shapers on location then the extra few grams of weight pale into insignificance compared to hauling the large softboxes. There are mods you can do to the adaptor to improve its strength which you can find by googling but I strongly feel this should not be necessary if it had been engineered correctly in the first place as I would expect from Swiss engineering.
Ok, lets get to the nitty gritty how does it perform in the field? For this review I will be concentrating on its first field outing although it has been used considerably since then which I will be able to post later next year once my project is ready to launch.
The day was a very bright Septembers day at 1pm so a good test of Quadras ability to overpower the Sun. One thing you should bear in mind when trying to overpower the Sun is the efficiency of your light modifiers. I personally like hard light and relectors are by far the most efficient shapers to make full use of your flash power. Softboxes and umbrellas all eat up precious power which is why I like reflectors. For this exercise I used the 21cm 50 degree reflector. The 13.5cm reflector which comes with the Quadra kits is very good and gives an excellent quality of light but I do find it gives a too wide a spread of light wasting power. You have to use it very close to maxamise all the power available when overpowering the Sun.
I placed the model with the sun slightly behind and high right to her left my right. This was my rim light to give seperation. The Quadra was placed to my left at a 45 degree angle to the model about 7ft high and at a distance of 3mtrs. I took a couple of test shots to determine the power output and then it was into the shoot. Now this brings up one of my few complaints about the Quadra which is I would love to tell you which power rating I was using however it was near impossible to read the LCD in bright sun even shading it with my hand. I could read the display of my D3 if I turned my back to the sun and shaded it but not the Quadra! Why didn't Elinchrom make a display in a colour that was strong enough to see in bright light?
This is the adjusted shot as I wanted the background uderexposed. Camera set to manual 250sec at f16, iso 100 and white balance set to 4550K to create a blue cast as I wanted to use a gold umbrella on the first shots which can be seen in the first three pictures.
Changed over to the 21cm reflector and white balance set to Flash. Had to lower the power of the Quadra by a fair bit so I guess it was running at no more than 3/4 power max.
For the next location we moved just into the woods in the shade. Here the test for the Quadra was much easier and the shoot became much more of a studio set up as I did not need to worry so much about raw power. So it was a simular set up as before with a Nikon SB800 set to slave using a grid in a Viewfinder mini speedlight beauty dish as a rimlight behind the model at a slight angle off her left shoulder and set low. The Quadra was to my left about 6ft high using a shoot thru placed around 3mtrs away for a harder light. Quadra set at 150w and camera set at f8, 125sec, iso 100. By the end of the shoot I had taken 80 shots with over half running at 3/4 power and the battery was showing half full so I have no doubt that Elinchroms claim of 120 full power shots per battery will easily be met. As a point of fact on all subsequent shoots since, I have never got beyond a half full battery indicator and those are what I would class as normal bread and butter shoots such as a Model, Wedding or Engagement type shoots either on location or in a studio.
The Skyport system is excellent and works well with the inbuilt Skyport in the Quadra head unit. So far no duff triggers in the field within normal working distances. One other key function of the Quadra is the ability to sync with your speedlight as a slave and fire on the last of your preflashes which you can either enter if you know the amount or it has a learning mode to fiqure it out itself.
The RQ-EL adaptor to allow the use of Elinchrom light shapers is not really up to the job in my opinion. At around £69 the ability to only go up to supporting the 135cm Octa which, admittingly, I have not tried is unforgivable. However, even the 60cm Lastolite Ezybox takes a fair amount of torque to hold it secure so a 135 Octa would require an amount of tightning to certainly make me feel uneasy that somthing may give. The weak point is the clamp which is mainly plastic and unable to torque to the required pressure. For the cost of making it out of metal which I'm sure they could of done within the cost or if not, I would of quite happily paid the extra £10 for a metal clamp. The weight argument is a none issue as the use of the large modifiers would mainly be for studio use and besides, if I should require these larger shapers on location then the extra few grams of weight pale into insignificance compared to hauling the large softboxes. There are mods you can do to the adaptor to improve its strength which you can find by googling but I strongly feel this should not be necessary if it had been engineered correctly in the first place as I would expect from Swiss engineering.
Ok, lets get to the nitty gritty how does it perform in the field? For this review I will be concentrating on its first field outing although it has been used considerably since then which I will be able to post later next year once my project is ready to launch.
The first field outing required hauling the gear on foot uphill for about half a mile. First point of note this would of been a lot harder with a Ranger set. As it was it was managable for two with tripods, extra Speedlights, camera gear, lighting paraphernalia and light shapers. So tick in the box for the Quadra's light weight. My first test was to try and overpower the sun. As a point of interest the location I used is one on my doorstep which was where the Roman army stood in the opening battle sequence in Gladiator and more recently is the spot where the castle stood for the yet to be released Nottingham about Robin Hood again starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott who obviously loves the location. So in giants footsteps we tread!
The day was a very bright Septembers day at 1pm so a good test of Quadras ability to overpower the Sun. One thing you should bear in mind when trying to overpower the Sun is the efficiency of your light modifiers. I personally like hard light and relectors are by far the most efficient shapers to make full use of your flash power. Softboxes and umbrellas all eat up precious power which is why I like reflectors. For this exercise I used the 21cm 50 degree reflector. The 13.5cm reflector which comes with the Quadra kits is very good and gives an excellent quality of light but I do find it gives a too wide a spread of light wasting power. You have to use it very close to maxamise all the power available when overpowering the Sun.
I placed the model with the sun slightly behind and high right to her left my right. This was my rim light to give seperation. The Quadra was placed to my left at a 45 degree angle to the model about 7ft high and at a distance of 3mtrs. I took a couple of test shots to determine the power output and then it was into the shoot. Now this brings up one of my few complaints about the Quadra which is I would love to tell you which power rating I was using however it was near impossible to read the LCD in bright sun even shading it with my hand. I could read the display of my D3 if I turned my back to the sun and shaded it but not the Quadra! Why didn't Elinchrom make a display in a colour that was strong enough to see in bright light?
This is my test exposure of my stand in model in Aperture priority set at f5.6 which gave me a shutter speed of 1000/sec, iso 200. This will give you an idea of how bright the day was!
This is the adjusted shot as I wanted the background uderexposed. Camera set to manual 250sec at f16, iso 100 and white balance set to 4550K to create a blue cast as I wanted to use a gold umbrella on the first shots which can be seen in the first three pictures.
So the result? Judge for yourself with the pictures below. I would guess that the Quadra was running at around 3/4 power here and this was a bright day and we were right under the Sun so for me the Elinchrom Quadra passed the overpowering the sun test with a fair amount of ease with the right modifier. The first three shots were using a gold umbrella which forced the Quadra to use more power. Actual settings for these was 250sec at F13, iso 100 as found f16 a bit too dark.
Changed over to the 21cm reflector and white balance set to Flash. Had to lower the power of the Quadra by a fair bit so I guess it was running at no more than 3/4 power max. For the next location we moved just into the woods in the shade. Here the test for the Quadra was much easier and the shoot became much more of a studio set up as I did not need to worry so much about raw power. So it was a simular set up as before with a Nikon SB800 set to slave using a grid in a Viewfinder mini speedlight beauty dish as a rimlight behind the model at a slight angle off her left shoulder and set low. The Quadra was to my left about 6ft high using a shoot thru placed around 3mtrs away for a harder light. Quadra set at 150w and camera set at f8, 125sec, iso 100. By the end of the shoot I had taken 80 shots with over half running at 3/4 power and the battery was showing half full so I have no doubt that Elinchroms claim of 120 full power shots per battery will easily be met. As a point of fact on all subsequent shoots since, I have never got beyond a half full battery indicator and those are what I would class as normal bread and butter shoots such as a Model, Wedding or Engagement type shoots either on location or in a studio. If you are a strobist and have been looking at the Quadra but have been put off by the price then I urge you to seriously reconsider. If you can't stretch to the two head kit and would not see yourself needing two units in the future then just buy the one head kit but factor in a Skyport transmitter at around £70 and the RQ-EL adaptor for £67 so that you can start to use the extensive range of Elinchrom light modifiers. No need now to buy expensive strobist adaptors to be able to use more than one speedlight at a time for extra power or enable you to use light modifiers that normal strobe heads have been using with ease since the dawn of photography.
Can the Quadra replace speedlights? No is the answer to that as the iTTL systems are indispensible in fast moving situations such as a wedding or for when you want to use high speed sync. However, if you are a location shooter or even have a small home studio then this is the answer to all your prayers. I have in fact replaced my home studio strobes with this as the saving in size and lack of needing to plug into power sockets along with their associated hazardous cabling are a real bonus. The Elinchrom Quadra mixed with speedlights are to me, the Ideal lighting combination and it intergrates beautifully with them with its ability to learn the preflash codes, work as a slave or master by triggering speedlights with their optical slaves turned on.
In conclusion, since this test the Quadra has gone on to prove a worthwhile investment both for location and studio work and I highly recommend it to any potential would be purchasers.
Can the Quadra replace speedlights? No is the answer to that as the iTTL systems are indispensible in fast moving situations such as a wedding or for when you want to use high speed sync. However, if you are a location shooter or even have a small home studio then this is the answer to all your prayers. I have in fact replaced my home studio strobes with this as the saving in size and lack of needing to plug into power sockets along with their associated hazardous cabling are a real bonus. The Elinchrom Quadra mixed with speedlights are to me, the Ideal lighting combination and it intergrates beautifully with them with its ability to learn the preflash codes, work as a slave or master by triggering speedlights with their optical slaves turned on.
In conclusion, since this test the Quadra has gone on to prove a worthwhile investment both for location and studio work and I highly recommend it to any potential would be purchasers.
