gear

THE DIGITAL SOAPBOX OF ANDY CLEAVENGER

SPEEDOTRON 2403CX

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Email:  graycard18@gmail.com

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I will admit up front that I haven’t used a lot of strobe systems. The only other system that I have any experience with at all is Balcar. Oh, and one guy I assisted had a Hensel battery operated pack and a single head. But other than that, everyone else I assisted used Speedos, the studio in school used Speedos, and when I got my present job, they also had Speedos (a handful of heads and a couple of abused 1200 W/s packs). So I continue to use them simply because they’re what I’m familiar with.

As an assistant, I remember hating Balcars mostly because of the method of fastening modifiers to the heads. They have these two knobs on the top of the head that control two silver tabs inside the rim that, when tightened down, hold the reflector or speed ring in place. The problem with that system is that the knobs more often than not were stiff and very difficult to turn and the silver tabs that held the reflector/speed ring in place were very easy to break. So, from an assistant’s point of view the Balcars sucked because they were difficult to put together, slow to take apart, and challenging to keep in working order. From the photographer’s perspective Balcar was great because the pack gave him the ability to alter power output of each head independently without effecting the power going to the other lights plugged into the same pack. Speedotrons can’t do that.

I admit to being a bit envious of the ability to independently alter power levels for each light without effecting the others, but I have grown accustomed to the way my Speedotrons work, and I appreciate even more the fact that I have never once had to send anything in for repair. The photographer I used to assist who used Balcars was constantly sending his heads in for repair. For the year I worked for him he was perpetually down at least one head, sometimes more. My Speedos might not be the fanciest system out there, but at least they’re not AWOL.

The 2403cx is the dial down version of Speedotron’s 2400 W/s pack. When I say “dial down” I mean that there’s a dial on the top that lets you dial down the power output in increments of 1/3 stop down to a maximum of -3 stops. Dialing down is a feature that I’ve found I can’t live without. And If you’re thinking about a Speedotron system I would definitely recommend making sure it has the ability to dial down.