Gear Report: Elinchrom Ranger Quadra

Ever since the newest Ranger kit showed up at Pixels Foto & Frame I’ve been dying to take it out for a spin. Sure, we played with it in store a little bit, took it to a trade show as a demo, but I wanted to take it somewhere that would really put the kit into its element. I finally had the opportunity to take the kit out for a evening of night snowboarding photos with a local group of riders who specialize (amongst other things) in riding pitch black areas with nothing but headlamps for light.

A back-lit rider prepares an impromptu jump.

But first a brief discussion of what the Quadra is and why you, or anyone, who loves lighting should care. The Ranger series has long been Elinchrom’s high end battery pack and head system. The full size Ranger pack will blast out a sun-tanning 1100 w/s of power if you need it to. But like a lot of similar systems it isn’t exactly easy to tote around.

This is where the new Ranger Quadra steps in, and what you notice first is the size. This thing is TINY. The pack with a battery attached weighs less than some pro camera/lens combinations. And then there’s the flash head itself: sans reflector the entire head is smaller than my fist. Pretty incredible stuff from a size and weight stand point, but what about power?

Four-hundred watt-seconds of power to exact. Stack that little detail next to the tiny size and you have a light system to be truly excited about. The kit I tested was one of Elinchrom’s To-Go flash kits featuring the power pack, two batteries, charger, two flash heads, and integrated Skyport triggering.

Ranger used to light the rider and the trees behind. Added a small SB-80DX as a slight edge light for the left side.

Skyport is Elinchrom’s system for wireless firing of their lighting gear. What makes this special is that the pack has the receiver built-in and the transmitter on your camera’s hot-shoe allows for direct control of the pack’s power output and activates the LED modeling lamps on the flash heads if desired.

Like the bigger Ranger, the Quadra can run two flash heads simultaneously with an asymmetrical split in power between heads A and B. This means that with both heads attached power is automatically split in a 2/3 (66.6%) 1/3 (33%) ratio. You are locked into this ratio like most packs of similar design. The power split gives you a logical key light and fill light relationship and you will find the power split will not be an issue for your average everyday photo shoot.

With the technical stuff out of the way we’re on to the field test itself. Since we were shooting snowboarding photographs in multiple locations I needed a carrying system that would grant mobility and protection to lights while we moved from spot to spot. With this in mind I rigged a Dakine Sequence backpack as the light bag for the evening. The pack tucked safely away inside as did the two flash heads and appropriate cables. I packed a pair of Manfrotto Super Clamps with mounting studs to allows me to make lighting supports out of just about anything. A second Dakine bag carried the camera, lenses, a couple of small Nikon speedlights, and a tripod.

On the slopes careful skiing was in order since light was scarce and we didn’t want to put unnecessary risk on the gear. Our first location was a tree lined gully that funneled down for several hundred feet before rejoining a ski run. The top of the chosen line was marked with a fallen tree trunk covered with snow. Using the trunk as a kicker, each boarder could jump as they entered the gully and we had potential for some nice action shots.

Ranger used to light the rider and the trees behind. Added a small SB-80DX as a slight edge light for the left side.

We secured some high ground looking down upon the jump as the logical place to set up the Quadra. We knew that we’d need both flash heads going in order to get all the needed light for the scene so we went ahead and connected everything immediately. Having opted not to bring any light stands we used poles and super clamps to position the heads where needed. The light weight of each flash was a real benefit here as we were able to make usable “light stands” out of just about anything without needed to worry about whether or not our supports could hold the lights.

Two flashes locked us into the asymmetrical power distribution so Head B (33% power) was directed at the jump where our rider would be and Head A (66% power) would handle opening up the inky black background to give the shot some context. Down the gully 50-60 ft. was camera position: tucked up against a tree and immediately below where the riders would land after hitting the jump point.

The Quadra really shined in this situation once we powered up the LED modeling lamp. These things are B-R-I-G-H-T. We were able to accurately pre-focus each shot and had the added benefit of giving the riders some extra light as they took runs. The finishing touch with the setup came with addition of a low-power speedlight rim. Since all the light from the Quadra was camera right in the final shots, the small SB provided a much-needed separation light on the rider’s opposing side.

The whole setup was simple to strip down and re-pack for the next location. Since we now had shots in a pretty stationary setting we switched it up to prepare for some quick and easy moving shots. I took the lighting pack and after riding the lift up immediately connect a single flash head to the pack in the ‘A’ position giving me access to the full 400 watt-seconds if needed.

With pack on and the flash connected I threaded the cable up and over my shoulder so I could wear the pack and hand-hold the flash tube. Shooting partner Nate King took the camera pack and in this way we could ski and shoot quickly and efficiently. The Skyport allowed Nate to control the flash power from his shooting location while the pack remained safely protected on my back at all times. We were able to work with 100-150 ft. of distance between the camera and the lights with reliable results the whole evening.

A single back-light from the Quadra lights up the flurries of snow from the riders.

The biggest crutch for shooting the action shots came down to the long recycling times on the Quadra. Shots were repeatedly missed because the pack couldn’t recycle fast enough to allow a rapid sequence of photographs to be taken (a Broncolor this is not). Each pass made by a rider would yield only one shot making careful timing and quick reactions on the camera end a must. In all fairness, the Quadra is not a particularly slow pack, recycling times are well within what should be expected; it was simply not quite enough to keep up with rapidly moving snowboarders.

That being said, the flash durations on the Ranger Quadra are excellent and provided fantastic action-freezing flash pops all night. Coupled with the LED lamps for focus assist and we were getting consistently sharp photos all night even as the riders were hucking themselves off various make-shift jumps.

The final setup was orchestrated around a simple roller tucked against the bottom of a dark tree grove. With the lighting still geared up for fast and simple we went with a single-light back lit approach. I placed the Quadra above the camera position with the jump right smack between us. As a rider would go airborne, we could freeze them mid-air with the snow plumes they kicked up giving us a dramatic action shot.

Which brings me to my final gripe with the Quadra as a whole: cable length. I’m talking about the cables the run power from the battery pack to the actual flash head; they’re simply too short for a lot of two light setups. It is possible to purchase special extension cables to help negate this problem, but you lose some power when you use them.

And that brings us to this report’s conclusion and what we’re left with is a pretty amazing piece of equipment. For the size and the weight there is NOTHING out there that can match the Quadra on power or convenience. Sure the cable length is a little short and the recycle time can be on long side sometimes, but seems hardly enough to condemn the system. LED modeling lamps, built in Skyport, 400 watt-seconds heads the size of my fist? Quadra’s got it in spades and the result is a pack that is easy to work with and all but the biggest and most demanding shoots it’ll fit the bill nicely.

Addendum (2/22/2010): Mark Astmann was kind enough to stop by in the comments with a couple of points regarding the Quadra. The recycling time of the pack can be significantly increased by changing the unit into its fast recycle mode. This cuts recycle times in half with a 40% decrease in battery life. This is great if you need to work quickly, but at 2.1 seconds for a full recharge action photographers will still need to plan their shots carefully (no Spray & Pray here folks).

Finally, I was critical of the Quadra’s cable length but mentioned that extensions were available to allow greater working distances. The cables included in the box are 8′ in length; Elinchrom offers additional cables in 5′ & 11′. A new, almost 33′ cable will be available next month I am told. The trade off with adding extensions comes in the form of a roughly one stop power loss for every 10 feet of cable.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 5:52 pm. It is filed under Reviews and tagged with Ben Kuhns, Elinchrom, lighting, Ranger, review, snowboarding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.