Elinchrom Quadra ‘S’ head kit

Photo answers review

Photo answers rating

If you’re a fan of working in remote locations, then you’ll know it can be a real problem if you want to use professional lighting, as there’s no power available. This is where a portable flash kit comes in handy, as it provides you with studio lighting on location thanks to its battery power.

Elinchrom has been a leading name in studio lighting for many years, and the brand has some superb portable lighting in its portfolio. The Quadra lights are, however, a little bit different because they are very compact and lightweight. Each head weighs just 250g and the battery pack with a battery fitted is only 3kg. You can buy the Quadra lights as two different versions. The ‘S’ lights are the ones we have tested, and these are the standard version. There’s an ‘A’ head available that gives a faster flash duration, but is a touch more expensive. Each of the lights can be purchased as single head kits, or twin-head kits. The latter is supplied in a plastic carry case with two batteries, as per our sample. The twin set also includes a Skyport transmitter that attaches to the top of your camera and gives cableless radio-triggered operation. A sync cable and charger are also included in the twin-pack case, along with a strap for the battery pack.
One surprising omission is a set of flash stands, so you’ll need to dig a little deeper than the £1500 price-tag if this is your first and only lighting set and you need to buy some stands. If you already own an Elinchrom lighting setup, the Quadra lights require an additional EL mount adapter to attach soft boxes, snoots etc, costing around £65 per adapter.
The battery units are very compact and take just 2 hours to charge. These clip onto the bottom of the power unit very easily. You get over 100 flashes from a fully-charged battery and the heads take a tad over 2 seconds to recharge, which isn’t bad for a battery-powered unit. You can also adapt the power pack to different plug configurations, which is ideal for taking the kit abroad.

Performance
Operation is very simple, with the control pad on the top of the battery unit being very similar to the brand’s mains-powered studio lights. This will appeal to Elinchrom fans, and aids intuitive operation. The lighting heads have an LED modelling light built-in, which can be controlled from the battery pack. Power can be stepped up and down very easily using the up/down arrows. With two heads attached the power for both is linked. This means you can’t adjust one without the other, so you need to be creative with positioning to get differential lighting.

Verdict
For the price, the twin-head Quadra pack is quite superb value and very versatile. The lights are most effective and the portability – thanks to the lightweight design – is quite brilliant. Location lighting is very easy to achieve with this set, and the only criticism is the lack of included lighting stands. For portrait work, or simple location product images, there are few lighting sets that offer this level of power in such a small and compact set.
www.theflashcentre.com