The maximum power isn't as important in this circumstance as is the minimum power setting. A 640ws or more flash, if it gave 1/16 or smaller minimum output, would IMO be OK. You would never regret the highest power and would always find an occasion when even more would be useful. To illustrate my point, when I was a wage slave I used a 6000ws pack driving a single 2m x 1m softbox, plus a 3200ws pack with 2 flash-heads, plus up to 4 additional 800ws monobloc heads. Even with all that power on tap there were many occasions when multi-flashing was required to get f22 or f32 at ISO64.
OTOH my personal Multiblitz kit was made especially for portraiture and has three monobloc heads at 180 ws each which is plenty for an f8 single or double portrait at ISO100. But as general purpose units they are not so good because they only offer two power settings, full and half. My kit is stretched to photograph a group of 10 to 20, and even then I'm either putting two heads together to act as one light source, or reverting to the polished dish reflector at the main-light position, which is harder than I like for people photos. So my advice is to get the most powerful unit you can afford that also gives you a small minimum power setting. Perhaps you should investigate a pack/head combo around 800ws to 1200ws. If money was tight you could get started with a single flash-head but you would then have the option of getting additional heads for less money than additional monobloc heads would cost, up to the limit of the power pack which is usually 3 or 4 heads. To stay on-topic, all my 35mm shots lit by the Multiblitz's were taken with Pentaxes, and when I moonlighted at work I would use my own cameras, Pentaxes of course. Regards, Anthony Farr ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brendan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > just to see how I may be able to light my basement and > I was so > surprised. withthe Af500 and achiever on slave, the > 330 on camera then > manually fired, the result at 400 iso was F22!!!!!! > white walls > reflect ALOT. I guess a 640ws flash is way too much > power to start > with, and I'm better off with a 320 ws unit, but still > the price > difference doesn't seem to be worth it. - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
