Swiss pro electronic flash manufacturer Elinchrom, Phottix whose control systems currently work with Canon, Nikon & Sony DSLR cameras TTL for flash and Sekonic, world class creators of hand held light meters have teamed toghether to focus these areas of expertise on light measurement and control.
What does this mean for photographers? A big change for how electronic flash systems are controlled is one important consideration. Remote controlled flashes are not new by any means. Putting together these three companies can mean some disruptions for other manufacturers leading to a new way of controlling lighting and exposure.
The Power of Three…
Elinchrom, Phottix and Sekonic have committed to creating an operating system that shares a signal to incorporate their respective transmitters, receivers and controllers.
Elinchrom
Elinchrom is known for its portable, high performance electronic flash lighting systems as well as their light shaping tools.
Phottix
Phottix flash systems currently provide Through The Lens (TTL) and manual control for Canon, Nikon and Sony flashes on their respective DSLR cameras. Their system also handles settings for the Phottix Mitros+ accessory shoe mounted flashes and their Indra monobloc TTL flashes.
Sekonic
Sekonic hand held light meters are known worldwide for their accuracy in measuring and controlling light. The top two models can be calibrated to individual camera sensors using Sekonic’s Data Transfer software.
New products
According to the press release “Phottix and Elinchrom design engineers are collaborating on enhanced features for the next generation of the Skyport transmitter which will include hyper-sync functionality.
Photographers using the Phottix Indra 360 TTL or Indra 500 TTL lighting systems will soon have the ability to use the broad range of Elinchrom light-shapers, the most popular light-shaping tools in the world.
Sekonic is collaborating with both Phottix and Elinchrom to finalize two new 478-series LiteMaster Pro flash meters; one for Elinchrom featuring in-meter power control and one for Phottix that allows for triggering of groups from the meter. “
Distribution
The MAC Group US and the MAC Group Europe will handle marketing and distribution for the new alliance. MAC Groups’ president Jan Lederman summed the collaboration this way: “As children, we were always told to play nice in the sandbox. Now that we are grown, we want to redefine the sandbox. The goal of this revolutionary alliance is to give photographers around the world access to the very best products and technology no matter what their needs, style of shooting or experience level. With these three companies working together, we are creating an all-new future for what’s possible in the photographic lighting category.”
In future times
This “first look” at combined tech shows a hand held meter (Sekonic’s L-478) not only reading the exposure but setting it as well. I wonder how TTL can be married to an exposure set with an incident reading to control contrast for instance. This has the potential to bring high end studio flash and their multiplicity of light modifiers (Elinchrom) into a “program” or “P” for professional mode on the meter. Couple this with control technology (Phottix) and a software development kit (SDK) for DSLR cameras it’s easily conceivable that a new mode “EFP” or “Electronic Flash Program” will evolve. Imagine setting up lights, take a single reading with the flash meter that wirelessly sets the camera then adjusts the other lights for a contrast preset of high, medium or low. Time and tech will tell.
Kevin is a commercial photographer from Atlanta. He works for fashion, architectural, manufacturing and corporate clients. When he’s not shooting, he contributes to Photoshop User magazine & writes for Photofocus.com.
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http://kevinamesphotography.com
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Filed under: Lighting, Photography Tagged: Elinchrom, Kevin Ames, lighting, Lighting News, News, Phottix, Sekonic 
