Today’s Post by Joe Farace
A few years ago, among the birthday gifts Mary gave me was a new Paul C Buff DigiBee—in blue.
I remember seeing the original Alien Bee monolights when they were introduced at the (former) PMA trade show. The lights were compact, affordable, colorful and built to the same quality standards that are the hallmark of all Paul C Buff designs. Mr. Buff is no longer with us but his company hasn’t lost that commitment to excellence in innovation in lighting products.
If you’re not familiar with the DigiBee, here’s some details. It is a digitally controlled monolight that’s available in 160 Watt-second (DB400) and 320 Ws (DB800) versions. And while the original Alien Bee was designed for function over form, the DigiBee adds a splash of style that extends from the honeycomb design to the “bee eye” flash tube cover to the rear control panel. The monolight offers consistent output, short flash duration, fast recycle and uses an LED modeling lamp. The high-impact polycarbonate housing with internal fan cooling is available in red, black, blue and green. It’s smaller too. A DigiBee measures 4.75 x 5.25 7.25 inches compared to an Alien Bee’s 8.5 x 7.875 x 5.75-inches.
The monolight’s bright LED modeling lamp can be used for previewing lighting effects or even producing a relatively bright continuous source. The DigiBee is compatible with Buff’s line of reflectors, softboxes, umbrellas and light stands. They are all Balcar-compatible as well.
The DigiBee uses 120 VAC (50-60 Hz) power and has a 15-foot power cord to connect to a standard, grounded outlet or can be used with the company’s Vagabond portable battery systems. The unit includes a sync cord for hardwired camera connection and a CyberSync port allowing the unit to be triggered and/or controlled wirelessly by the company’s wireless system.
How I Made this Portrait: The specs for Ms, Kelly Alexander’s glamour portrait above is as follows start with the custom-made Carbonite muslin backdrop from Silverlake Photo that was suspended on my old, tried-and-true JTL background stand system. Lighting was provided by a DigiBee DB800 with a 52x38x14-inch Plume Wafer Hexoval mounted placed at camera right. A second DigiBee DB800 was placed at camera left and left and slightly behind the subject. The camera used was a Panasonic Lumix GH4 with G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at 45mm with an exposure of 1/125 sec and f/9 and ISO 200.
If you’re interested in learning how I shoot portraits and how I use cameras, lenses and lighting in my in-home studio and on location, please pick up a copy of Studio Lighting Anywhere which is available new from Amazon.com with for $32.48 and starting around sixteen bucks used, as I write this. The Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.