A Question for full time internet photographers
 

About 4 years ago i purchased 10. Photogenic 2500 mono lights to use in my small California studio, why 10 heads, well i always believe in having backup and the store gave me a great deal on the price.
At the time and as far as i know even now the 2500 was the most powerful head they made.

Well to cut a very long story short . After about 18 months 2 heads blew in the most spectacular fashion, big flashes, a bang that sounded like a gun going off and the smell hung around my studios for days. Photogenics kindly repaired them under the 3 year warranty and all was well until August this year when a third head exploded and a flame shot out and singed the reflector brolly. The model i was shooting almost shit her self and again the smell was amazingly nasty. It cost $165 for the repair which took 4 weeks and when it came back it had another overheating problem so back it went again.
Now all 10 heads are developing the same overheating problem and i was told today that the heads should not be used for Glamour work as the shooting rate is too fast for the head and the repair would cost $360.00 ( discounted ) for each head to be repaired. While all this has been going on i purchased a ProPhoto 2400R dual voltage set up to tide me over while sorting out the problem . My question to other photographers is this , is it right that i should feel very pissed off that this company is charging all this money to repair their products and also telling me i shouldn't have ever used them for glamour work. A fact that is never mentioned in their literature or advertisements or was never brought up when i purchased them from the store here in California. Just to give you an idea, i shoot about 150-200 images an hour with one head set at around 500 which is 50% the other at 300 which is less that a third (30%) total power.

Anyway sorry for the log winded story but i feel very angry and just wanted a few other opinions on this.

Thanks Imageman

bump ?

That's really strange actually.. I have Photogenic heads and NEVER had a single problem with them, ever, and I used them continually for glamour, potrait, erotic, etc work.

Apparently if all the heads are developing the same problem, it is a fault with the lights not with you. If there's nothing in the literature that says you shouldn't use them above a certain shooting rate, honestly I'd tangle with the company. It's THEIR screw up, not yours. I'm really surprised that Photogenic would do something like that, as they have an excellent reputation and their products are always rock solid to my knowledge. Best of luck, and let us know what happens!

Thank you for your insight, the only thing i can find is the % one shots at in the manual and as none of the heads are used above 50- 60% i doubt that is the reason all 10 heads failed. Anyway since venting here i decided to buy another ProPhoto outfit, Samys in LA had another 2400R Dual voltage system , they are not mono heads so the overheating problems should not manifest in these units. Im just pissed because when talking to the new owner of Photogenics he in not so many words called me a liar when i indicated that the last head that blew shot a flame out some 20 inches, the model was the one that pointed it out , i don't like being called a liar, it sort of gets me to thinking do i really want to deal with people who talk to there clients like this.
Thanks again

well, i use speedos.

but in general i would say:

shooting images that fast even with my 1604 powerpack would probably blow my heads up.

sometimes you will have failures if you're trying to push all the W/S through just one (or two) lightheads.

don't know why you need such high power with digital, but maybe you are shooting through lots of light modifiers.

not too familiar with your hardware, but unless you have fans on them i would assume they are going to fail just because you're shooting so fast---excessive heat will eventually cause failure.

Again thanks. in a normal set up i use 7 lights 4 background lights set at around 10%. a hair light which is set anywhere from 10-30% dependent on hair color and a front and side light. Room size is anywhere from 15x20x10 high to 20x24x15 high. I aim for f11 and with this set up i manage f11 to f16. I use gold or silver brolly reflectors dependent on model and room setting. I like to have the model move around sometimes dance to music and find i can capture some nice images that don't look too posed using this process. I don't use every image , but i like the more natural results to a slow one at a time pose situation. I should add i have been shooting for 20 + years and never had equipment fail so catastrophically before.