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Photography News | Issue 51 | photographynews.co.uk
Adding the A1 Billed as the world’s smallest studio light, Profoto’s new A1 is easy to use, delivering beautiful and natural-looking output. Two working pros reveal how it’s changed their working practices
If you’re looking for impartial judgement on a product then take a look at the gear that the professionals are using, since they are in a position where their career depends on the reliability and performance of the equipment they choose to work with. Small wonder then that so many have chosen
Profoto as their partner, buying into the fact that this is a company with a long tradition of supplying innovative and powerful lighting gear to serious photographers. Over the past few years the company has revolutionised the lighting landscape, delivering a series of cutting-edge products that
have effectively packaged studio light performance into small and easily transportable flashgun- sized devices, that are perfectly suited to the requirements of those working on location, often far from the nearest source of mains power. And the good news is that the range continues to grow, with the
recent addition of the newA1 head, which Profoto has proclaimed ‘the world’s smallest studio light’. This amazing new product, which delivers light that’s both natural and beautiful, with a gorgeously smooth falloff, comes with the potential to take the lighting capabilities of the
working pro to the next level. To find out exactly what its impact has been we caught up with two established professional Profoto users to find out how the A1 might have impacted on their working practices.
profoto.com
The new Profoto A1
Tina Eisen
Born and raised in Germany, fashion and beauty photographer Tina Eisen has been living in the UK since 2004. Her list of stellar clients includes the likes of Harvey Nichols, ASOS, Marks & Spencer, ITV, Amazon, Barbour, Spring Studios andFacebook, and she’s also had her work featured in magazines and on front covers across the globe. “I picked up a camera about eight years ago,” she says, “and confirmed my first commercial client a year later. In the early days I didn’t know a lot about lighting brands, quality of light or consistency, and I worked with a set of secondhand lights that ‘did the job’ during my first year. Once I started working with proper commercial clients, however, I was introduced to industry standard brands such as Profoto and realised the importance of having a decent set of reliable lights. I fell in love with Profoto so hard that I saved up my first few pay cheques and very quickly swapped the secondhand lights for my first set of mono lights. “Most recently I’ve been working with Profoto’s D1 lights, since these offer me the performance I need for studio beauty in a compact package. I like to give myself the option to bring my own lights to shoots, whenever quality lighting isn’t available. The portability of the D1 lights, combined with the flexibility and ease of operation of the Air remote control system, givesme the flexibilityandcontrol I need on set, and the range of available modifiers ensures my full creative freedom.” The introduction of the latest A1 lights has added immensely to Tina’s lighting armoury, particularly with regard to location work. “While I used to be a strict studio kind of girl, hiding
The Profoto A1 is designedwith light shaping capabilities; it has a unique round headwith a soft, smooth falloff that makes it easy to create a natural and beautiful light. It also includes a smart magneticmount and
Image Tina Eisen
behind the ‘natural light is too unpredictable’ excuse, the A1 has given me the confidence to shoot beauty and fashion outdoors a lot more,” she says. “It’s given me control over available light on location without the need to necessarily carry my D1 or B1 units, and I now work solely with my A1 units when I have an overseas shoot. I’ve also replacedmy hair and background lights in the studio with A1 lights, thus making my kit a lot more portable.” While the A1 lights might have had a major impact on the way she works, Tina still uses her D1 units extensively, her go-to kit typically consisting of two to three D1s along with a pair of A1s. Meanwhile trusted modifiers are a beauty dish, a two-foot octabox, zoom or strip lights and handheld reflectors, while the A1 is regularly used with its dome diffuser to enable a softer light. “When shooting beauty I’m often working in small spaces,” she says, “and the fact that I’ve been able to reduce the need for bigunits and light stands byusing a couple of small and compact A1s hasmademy life on set a lot easier and tidier. Meanwhile adding the A1 units to my set-up has proved to be child’s play, since the A1 communicates with all of its Profoto siblings seamlessly.”
three dedicated A1 Light Shaping Tools that click on and off quickly and easily – a Dome Diffuser, Wide Lens and Bounce Card – and these can be stacked for more creative options. The A1 also offers a built-in LEDmodelling light that makes it easy to set the light and understand how light and shadows work together. The user interface is large, clean and clear and, like all Profoto products, it’s easy and intuitive to use and you don’t need to read a long instruction manual to understand how it works. AirTTL remote is also built in to the A1. With AirTTL and HSS you can easily create professional results andwith the remote you can seamlessly connect to other Profoto flashes and control them from the A1. Profoto A1 is not only an on-camera flash; it’s also very effective off-camera as a standalone unit. The A1 has its own Li-Ion high-capacity battery built in that lasts up to four times longer than AA batteries with no performance fade, and a facility to recharge quickly. So you can shoot for longer with confidence, and the A1 can keep upwith you because it recycles four times faster than other on-camera solutions – that’s 1.2sec at full power. Put simply, you’ll never miss a shot.
t-two-photo.com
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