Studio Strobes and Digital

[Edward]

Since no one has jumped in, one quick comment - I can see no reason why studio strobes would not work just fine with a digital camera.  A lot of pros are using only digital and are using their same strobes. I think you need a new salesman.  Of course, with digital you can just try it right in the store and see what is happening.

[sjstremb]

Your store is totally uninformed. I use a D100 with both VISATEC and Broncolor studio strobes and they work great. The only issue is that you need to use your camera in the manual mode and determin the exposure with a good flash meter (I like Sekonic meters myself).

I have also used Kodak 14N and Nikon CP5000 in the studio without problem. I used these with Speedotron Black line strobes as well.

One last issue is to be sure to use a safe-sync adapter of a radio slave like pocket wizzards to avoid frying the cameras sync circuts.

[RNB]

I want to purchase a set of strobes to do studio work (which will be new to me). As I was speaking to my local camera store today (and they are usually quite knowledgeable) I was told something disturbing.

My salesman said that studio strobes were not useful with digital cameras. He said that due to the nature of chips, they tended not to work well. He said that one would need to completely alter the set up for each shot, even two in the same place. Now, I may have misunderstood his rationale, but not his point.

Are hot or cold constant lights much better for digital? I aslo have medium format film equipment, and would like to use the same lights.

Thanks for any help.

Tell the salesman that he's speaking complete nonsense and doing his customers a disservice by spreading such rubbish.

Studio strobes work just fine with digital cameras. Most digicams and many DSRLs have built in electronic flash heads. What does he think these are? Right, exactly the same as studio strobes, except smaller.

Michael

[sergio]

I do lots of studio work with a 1Ds and use big Norman strobes and I can assure you it works perfectly. I have made images that look sharper and cleaner than 6x7s.
What you do have to keep in mind is that it is better to sync digital cameras cordlessly to the packs since these sometimes handle voltages harmless to conventional cameras but not to digital cameras. I use Quantum Radio Slaves and they are very reliable.