RSO – a Review (Sort Of) – Elinchrom Ranger AS Speed
Since I get so many questions about my gear, I decided to post an article every now and then about what I use and why. Don’t expect lab tests, honest comparisons and too much technical data, there are other sites who do that kind of stuff way better then I could do. Sure, the specs of any piece of equipment are important in making my choices but there’s also the beyond scientific factor of personal taste, look and feel. Remember, my ideal choice may be completely wrong for you. A personal subjective view hardly qualifies as a real review, so I’ve called this new section RSO (Review, Sort Of).
Let’s start this series of articles with the most expensive piece of gear I’ve bought lately: the Elinchrom Ranger RX Speed AS kit. This is basically a very powerful studio flash (generator + head).
What’s in the kit?
- Ranger RX Speed AS generator with battery
- extra battery
- battery charger
- “A” flash head
- standard reflector
- softlite reflector + softlite umbrella
- case
info: 1/200 – iso100 – f/16 – 24mm – bare Ranger Head to camera left
The need for a battery powered studio flash
I guess I’m a bit known for my use of small flashes (speedlights), the Strobist way. I still think small flashes are often the best choice, so the Ranger is not a replacement for my speedlights, rather an addition to have more options in lighting. Small flashes are remarkably powerful but sometimes that still isn’t enough. Placed close to the subject a speedlight is usually powerful enough to do whatever you want, but I evolved into making more wider shots which means that I have to put the flash further away from the subject to avoid having it in the frame, so more power was needed. And even if a speedlight throws out enough photons, recycle times become really slow at full power, 5-6 seconds between two pictures can be too much to keep a nice “flow” in the shoot.
Even more important than sheer power is the quality of light. With light modifiers like umbrella’s en softboxes, I find speedlight to throw out pretty beautiful light, but the hard light they throw out is not always as pretty. A speedlight is a bit of a compromise between power and light quality, with studio lights that’s less of an issue.
The last reason why I invested in portable studio equipment is to have more lighting options: beautydish, large softbox, … Sure, you can put a couple of speedlights in a large softbox or make a beautydish out of a salad bowl but sometimes the real deal makes work that little bit more enjoyable.
info: 1/200 – iso100 – f/14 – 17mm – bare Ranger Head to camera left
Why the Ranger RX Speed AS?
Let’s have a look to my list of requirements:
- Lots of power
- Consistency and accuracy of power settings
- Being able to dial the power way down
- Fast recycle
- Short flash duration capable to stop action even at full power (many flashes have to long flash durations, certainly on full power)
- Long battery life / pops per charge
- Availability/Price of modifiers and accessories
- Price
The Ranger meets all those criteria even though I wouldn’t mind if the price was a bit lower. Elinchrom is also a brand that has been regarded as very reliable and sturdy, which is important for a location photographer. When you’re buying your first studio flash, it’s wise to see it as buying into a complete system. If you end up with two or three different brands, accessories are often not interchangeable and assistants must be trained to use different systems. So I wanted a brand that can grow with me. Elinchrom wasn’t the only brand that qualified. Other brands like Profoto, Hensel and Broncolor have maybe even better reputations and products so they where on my shortlist too. Comparable products to the Ranger tend to be a bit more expensive but that wasn’t the major showstopper. “Availability” was my last but not least requirement. The possibility to rent or borrow equipment within the same system is important to me too. I don’t want to buy stuff that I only use once a year. Those things are better rented or borrowed from a friend. You can rent some other brands but usually just a basic kit and isn’t that just what a photographer would likely invest in. When it comes to huge modifiers, super powerful packs and exotic accessories, there’s a vast wasteland in Belgium. Only for Elinchrom there’s something to rent (although still not enough IMHO). It also helps that most of my friends who own studio gear, use Elinchrom.
I am not saying that Elinchrom is the best nor am I saying that I will stick to this brand forever. The recycle time of the Profoto’s, the inovativeness of Hensel and Broncolor’s sublime light quality are still very appealing. And there are probably more good brands around. I believe in using the right gear for the job and if that means switching over to another brand, so be it.
info: 1/200 – iso100 – f/10 – 70mm – bare Ranger Head to camera right
Why assimetrical?
You can plug in two heads into a Ranger pack and the Ranger Speed comes in a symmetrical and assymetrical flavor. With symmetrical, the power is distributed evenly (50-50) over the two outlets. The assymetrical distributes two thirds of the power to outlet A and one third to outlet B. I didn’t buy a second head and I’m pretty sure I never will buy one without buying another power pack. The idea of attaching two heads seems interesting at first but I see very limited use for my work. You don’t have control over the power of the heads seperately, with the symmetrical one, both heads put out the same power and with the assymetrical one, head A puts out twice the power of head B. I know you can start fiddling around with ND filters but that seems a bit too cumbersome. With two heads you’ll probably going to have cables all over the place and that’s not my idea of a smooth way of working either.
So if I’m just going to use one head, it doesn’t matter if you buy the symmetrical or the assymetrical, right? No, wrong otherwise I wouldn’t write this. For me the minimum power of a flash is at least equally important as the maximum output. I still like to use wide aperture when using flash so I need to be able to dial them way down. With the assymetrical Ranger, you can go down to 7 Watt/seconds if you plug the head into socket B. While if I’m not mistaken the symmetrical Ranger’s minimum power is double of that.
info: 1/160 – iso100 – f/10 – 200mm – bare Ranger Head to camera left
In the field
Enough about numbers, specifications and theory, how does the Ranger performs in the field?
Remarkably well, it’s a bit more of a hassle to set up a Ranger than a speedlight but it’s still pretty fast and easy. Very important to me is that it looks like it can take a serious beating. What’s the point in location lighting equipment if you’re afraid to use it on location? It packs more than enough power for most of my needs and recycles very fast. The battery seems to contain and endless suply of power even while using the modelling light a lot. I never had to use the spare battery yet.
And then there’s the quality of light. Especially hard light looks a lot better when it comes from the Ranger. With speedlights I’m always worried that hard light will not be very flattering, with the Ranger I’ll be using more hard light.
To me the Ranger is very much worth the investment because it opens up many new possibilities in my photography and can make some of the things I’m already doing look even better.
Thanks for the great review! I find this kind much more useful than ‘objective’ reviews which just state the technical data.
One thing would interest me a lot: can you elaborate about the “quality of hard light”?
I can’t yet quite grasp in what ways the hard light of one lightsource differs from another, and would be most interested!!
This review is great and the timing couldn’t have been better for me – I’m actually going to buy myself an Elinchrom Ranger RX (not the Speed AS though) tomorrow!
I have two questions though and I’d appreciate if you could answer them. Do you find yourself using all the power of the Ranger often? Are any of these shots taken with the ranger at the max setting and is it difficult to overpower the sun?
Thanks a lot for the review.
Not directly related to the subject of this post, but I love the style of the images you’ve included. How much of this was done in-camera and how much was added in post processing?
Nice review Bert. We are all looking forward to seeing the shots you get using your Ranger. Joe McNally calls his Ranger his bibles.
David most photographers don’t ever need the full 1100ws of power, especially in these days of high ISO’s.
Mark Astmann
Lighting Product Manager
Bogen Imaging, Inc.
“Availability” is why i’m going to go the Elinchrom way, too. Profot is located in my hometown (Cologne), and i like being able to talk to them, should something be wrong with the equipment.
The quadra looks interesting, too, but during the last year i have had several shootings – stock and assignment stuff – where 400ws just weren’t enough.
Thx Guys
@Sam: The reflector of a studiolight (and even there is a difference) throws out a much more even beam of light than a speedlight. A speedlight has by design a much more brighter spot in the center. With a standard reflector on a studio light, it’s more gradual. A studio light reflector is also a lot larger than a speedlight, with gives it a small but noticeable softer quality. It’s hard to explain, try to make the same pic with a speedlight and a studio flash and you’ll understand what I mean.
@David: It packs lots of power and usually I don’t need all of it. I wasn’t on full power on this shoot but since it was shot at noon, I was over half power. The nice thing is that you can set your light a couple of meters from the subject and still get enough light to overpower the sun.
@Allen: most of it is in-camera, just some Lightroom for vignetting and color “correction”
@Mark: I’m also looking forward to use it more. BTW, you must be happy to hear that it was mounted on a Manfrotto boom stand too
@Christopher: I may get myself a quadra to supplement the Ranger.
[...] iso 50-100, f/13 en 1/200 had ik een behoorlijk deel van de indrukwekkende krachtvoorraad van de Elinchrom Ranger [...]
[...] Time for something different and more dramatic by shooting against the sun and keeping the background rather dark. At iso 50-100, f/13 and 1/200 I needed a substantial amount of juice form Elinchrom Ranger. [...]
Just a comment on the rangers for those people looking into them – they are fantastic pieces of kit. I’m a cray location photographer and bash my gear around like hell. I have two rangers (RX speed and speed AS), and a whole heap of modifiers (softboxes, beauty dish, long throw reflector, bags of grips etc etc etc). I could have gone for Profoto or Broncolour, but for the price they simply can’t be beaten here in Australia. And I cannot explain how sturdy these are – we were once on a shoot and one of my assistants was holding the ranger head while the pack itself was banging against a cliff face in fairly high wind…for an hour. I’ve had them dunked in water, near fire and up in unlikely places.
Ok, I’ll stop raving now. Bert, that was a great review of the gear. The only issue I have the the rangers is the box they come in – it’s useless. So if you’re planning on getting a kit, budget for a proper carrying case, like a Tenba.
@Alex: You’re right the case doesn’t seem to be too sturdy and it’s a bitch to lug around.
A bitch is an understatement… Tenba cases are great, but paying for them wasn’t great. I paid $AUD1800 for the two that fit the major parts of my lighting (packs, batts, chargers, heads, grids, small reflectors), and that was at half price plus a generous discount. That was a bitter pill to swallow, because at the time, I didn’t realise how bloody bad the Elinchrom case would be and had no idea how much proper protection would cost. Still, haven’t regretted it.
I would like to hear further comments about symmetrical vs asymmetrical. I am about to make the plunge. I get the idea, asymmetrical, 66% key light and 33% fill. A good place to start for portraiture but I rarely do that. Most of the time I want one big powerful light. So if you plug one lamp in is it possible to get 100% with symmetrical? With asymmetrical?. I want to be sure before I part with my money. Tony R.
@Tony: As far as I know you get 100% power if you plug only one head in both the symmetrical and the asymmetrical. I also use it with just one head. The biggest advantage of the asymmetrical to me is that you get 100% power if you plug the head in socket A and less power if you use socket B. This allows you to also set your light at a lower minimum power. Sometimes I just want that little touch of flash and even the lowest power setting on the symmetrical would be too high.
Thanks for the nice review! I currently use a bunch of Sunpak 622 Super for strong location lights but they are getting beaten up and as these new products come out, I am seriously considering to upgrade!
@Ryuji: I’ll be reviewing the Hensel Porty soon, looks like it’s even better than the Ranger
This was really useful for me – Have been looking at the rangers needing some extra information
Thanks
Hello!
I just bought an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra and I am all happy, problem is that there is NOWHERE written HOW you use it. I mean, how do I make it work with my Canon 450D????
I’ve been doing photography for years, but only used scanlite. Simple and straight.
Now that I finally have this set I am blank.
Takes the edge off the enthusiasm…
I read the manuals, but it doesn’t say anything there about how to connect them.
I’ve googled 100′s of pages to find SOME place where some kind soul spells it out, but I can’t find any. PLEASE help by posting something, or answering on my e-mail. I would appreciate it SOOOOOO much! Tonight I am going to experiment at home again, but in case I don’t make it…
I can offer you a link from my website in return!
Kind Regards, Sofia
sofia: The problem is not the lights. It’s your camera. That canon does not have a specific sync port for pro lighting. You have 2 options. byuy the elinchrom or dimilar wireless trigger system (recomended) or by an atachment for the flas shoe to accept a sync cable
Great review. I’m about to purchase the Ranger so an informative review like this helps!
Did you get to try Hensel Porter? I actually bought Quadra soon after my previous comment… and I love it… except the price for every little adaptors and modifiers is ridiculous, at least in the USA…
Great review, I really appreciate it. Does one need to trigger the Ranger RX with Skyport triggers or can PocketWizards be used? What is the simplest most reliable way?
Hi Bert I am still waiting and excited about the arrival of my RX Ranger kit, I have used a mates kit and I am totaly sold, and I cant wait to get out there and shoot my own stuff with it. Great shots by the way.
I just bought the Elinchrom ranger quadra but I cannot figure out the symbols and numbers in the menu and sub Menus. The manual displays the symbols for photocell and a few other functions but does not decode many others, like “U” 1,2 or 3. Or “PL” 0 or 1, or “PC” 0 or 1, or “d” 0-7, or another 1 that looks like an “E” but isn’t quite. What the heck do these mean?? The manual does not help at all with this. Is there anyone out there that can point me in the right direction?
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks for the review.
I’m going to soon buy one to cover my weddings in French riviera because I need a very portative solution and the 400w would be enough. The only thing I dislike is the overpriced adaptater for softbox.
Alexis Borel
Thanks for the nice review. Does it work with the new Speed mode of the Skyport?