Profoto B1 - Industrial Safety Hero Product

You all know the Profoto B1 500 Air - the monohead that has the lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack clicked to the side of it - the one that fires incredibly short bursts of light. The one that takes all the Profoto light shapers and sits on the top of a standard light stand.

Well I want one. No. I want four of them.

I shoot in a darkened studio so that I can see the effect of the light positioning on the models. It does not have to be stygian in there but it is dim - as is my eyesight these days. Currently I have a set of lights that run off the mains power, with proper three-core AC cords and plugs. Because of the power socket position in the studio there are two feed points an two distributor blocks to split this electricity.

That makes six power power cords in total. Yesterday I managed to unplug, tangle, and trip over all six at some point in the afternoon. One occasion nearly brought down a main light stand on top of me- fortunately the model's assistant caught it. Thank goodness. Nothing would say "professional" like sitting on the floor in a pile of broken equipment...

The Profoto's on the other hand are cord free. There is no synch cord to deal with either, so your chance of clotheslining yourself is nil. Of course you have to go charge the batteries later but the darn things will fire over 200 shots full power anyway and my studio uses lights at their lowest settings so I cannot imagine running out of power.

I also want a camera that i can find in the dark after I have set it down somewhere - oddly enough this will probably be easy to do - a small LED and a tiny battery attached to and accessory bar will signal it. If I get two LED packs I can attach one to a coffee cup and life would be perfect.