Photography News 92 Web

First test

PRICE: £1599

THEFLASHCENTRE.CO.UK

ElinchromONE Off-Camera Flash

The ONE is Elinchrom’s first integrated battery studio flash and is richly featured – with TTL and HSS modes, a modelling lamp and touch control screen

SPECS ›  Price Off-Camera dual kit £1599, Off-Camera kit £799, Powerbank £55, 65W USB-C wall charger £55, OCF adapter £36, OCF Dome £24 ›  In the box 2x Elinchrom ONE heads, 2x Elinchrom OCF adapter, 2x Elinchrom OCF diffusion dome, 2x 65W USB-C wall charger, 2x USB-C cable 1.8m and 1x Elinchrom ONE backpack. Skyport Pro transmitter available for Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus/Panasonic and Sony, £229 ›  Output 131Ws ›  Number of flashes (claimed) 725 at full power ›  Power range 5EV in 0.1EV (manual) and 0.3EV (TTL), 7-131Ws ›  Flash duration 1/155-1/1530sec (normal), 1/625-1/7000sec (action) ›  Recycling 0.9secs at max power ›  Flash modes Manual/TTL/HSS 5900K (action), 5600K (HSS) ›  Auto power dumping Yes ›  Fan cooled Smart proactive cooling ›  Input USB-C ›  Umbrella fitting 7-8mm (on the light stand mount) ›  Dimensions (with diffusion dome and tilt head) 23x16.5x10.5cm ›  Weight (with diffusion dome and tilt head) 1.5kg ›  Contact theflashcentre.co.uk with Transmitter Pro ›  Colour temperature

ELINCHROM IS NO stranger to battery-powered studio flash, but the ONE is the first with an integrated (and fixed) Li-ion battery – and boasts an impressive feature set. Each unit weighed in at 1558g on my kitchen scales; that includes the diffuser cap and tilt head/light stand mount. Portability rates highly. You need stands and other accessories, but it's a great start. There are just three physical controls. An on/off button, a menu button and a large scroll wheel that also triggers the flash with a push. Turn the unit on with a two-second push of the on/off button and the LCD panel gives a selection of virtual touch controls. Push the physical menu button or tap the LCD with two fingers, you get a menu of icons that you navigate either by touch or with the input dial. This menu is a little cryptic. The running-man icon means action mode, the eye is the photocell, and the spanner is the settings menu. It’s fine once you get used to it, but it’s perhaps form over function. Power can be adjusted using the control dial, by swiping left or right to alter output in 0.1EV steps from 0.1 to 4.3, or by using the optional Pro transmitter. Flash duration is also shown. On the LCD, there’s a

modelling lamp on/off button – this can be changed to other functions in the favourite settings menu. There are useful features in the menu. For example, output can be shown in Ws, 0-10, or Elinchrom’s own scale. In the latter, set an output of 4.3 on this unit (the maximum) – this gives the same output as a 4.3 setting on any Elinchrom flash. Power output is rated at 131Ws – around twice as powerful as a speedlight, but less than the 250Ws of the Profoto B10. Rather neatly, Elinchrom has made the ONE compatible with Profoto OCF modifiers, and a slip-on adapter is supplied to enable Elinchrom modifiers to fit, too. Using a Gossen flash meter with the ONE in normal mode and added diffuser dome, I measured f/11.5 at ISO 100 at full power and one metre. This is very usable, and f/1.4 at 0.1 output is ideal when you want minimal depth-of-field. Charging is via USB port, taking just under two hours from flat with the supplied tech. On my test, a fully charged ONE gave 886 full power flashes. For this test I triggered the unit in groups of 100 flash bursts,

letting the unit rest for a few minutes before repeating the process. Recycling stayed under 1sec until 450 flashes, where it slowed down, ending at around 4secs. I had an optional Skyport Pro transmitter to fire the ONE. There is no physical flash sync option, which is a concern, as a 3.5mm jack port is a great back-up against any Skyport issues. You can sync the ONE via its photocell, but that’s only useful if you have a speedlight or camera with integral flash. It might be worth investing £75 on a backup trigger. During the flash burst duration test, the ONE did get warm – but not hot – and it never cut-out. There is a built-in cooling fan, which was quiet when it came on. Colour stability in normal and action modes was good through the power range. The lower settings gave a cooler look, as did action mode. Over 850 full flashes is impressive capacity, and you can expect many more with the ONE in TTL mode. Should you need extra capacity on location, plug in the optional 20,000mAh 18W Elinchrom Powerbank (or equivalent) and carry on shooting. WC

Verdict The Elinchrom ONE has a respectable power output and excellent capacity, plus there’s a powerbank back-up option. It’s very compact, takes Profoto OCF modifiers and delivers a consistent colour output. If you want a portable, studio flash lighting system, a single head for £799, or £1599 for the two-head kit, is very good value. The ONE performs to the high levels you would expect from Elinchrom. PROS Great to use, accepts Profoto OCF modifiers, decent output, awesome capacity, USB-C charging port, touch control panel CONS No mini-jack sync

TEST PICTURES Our test scene was shot using two ONE units fitted with the dome diffuser, performing a custom white-balance on the camera first. In standard mode, white-balance was good and neutral, varying little in colour from full power to 0.1. In action mode, colour output was cooler; as output was turned down, the light gradually got even cooler but not significantly so.

Normal mode, power 4.0

Action mode, power 1.0

Issue 92 | Photography News 49

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