Editor's Choice 2007: Lighting

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This rugged, reliable 2,400 watt-second strobe can do double duty for studio and location photography. We'd heard lots of photographers praise its smaller sibling, the 1200 watt-second Verso A2, so when the company announced this more powerful model we called it in, together with its Power Dock portable battery. We were duly impressed.

First, the A4's power. Even when you're running off the battery, it can deliver a full 2,400 watt-seconds. To the best of our knowledge, this makes it among the industry's most powerful battery-operated strobes. The only tradeoff is that recycle times are somewhat slower with the battery than with AC power.

Next, the A4's modeling light. When running one head off the A4/Power Dock combination at full power, the proportional modeling light was one of the brightest we've seen in a battery-powered location light. Pins connect the battery "dock" to the base of the A4; the two fit together seamlessly, but together they weigh over 50 pounds. (You may want to hire an extra assistant!)

Finally, construction. The A4 is extremely well-built, and should serve as an integral part of any photographer's studio for many years. Other features include a seven-stop adjustable range that allows you to set power as low as 18 watt-seconds per channel; connections for three heads; backlit controls; automatic monitoring and correction of both color temperature and discharge power; and self-switching voltage control that lets you use the A4 worldwide with 230-volt or 110-volt AC power. It's the only power pack we know of with custom functions; these control such things as the sensitivity of the built-in optical slave, the timing of auto shut off when on battery power, and programmable sequence firing. About $6,860 (compare prices).
www.broncolor.com.

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