The Aliens Have Landed! (Alien Bees - Review)
From the maker of the popular White Lightning strobes, Paul C. Buff has another offering, which should be a serious 
contender if you’re considering a new set of monolights. We recently tested the “bullet-proof” AlienBees monolights, and were pretty happy with the results.
If you’re new to photography and/or strobes and aren’t sure what a monolight is, basically it’s a self contained strobe light, with built-in power unit. Many manufacturers offer strobes in either a monolight version, or one that requires an additional power supply.
Alien Bees are not only easy to use, but also a breeze to setup and take down (weighing only 2.5 lbs each). Available in 3 watt-second ratings (400, 800, 1600) and 5 colors (yellow, black, green, pink, white) they’ve really got your options covered. The nice thing about these different WS ratings, is that regardless of which AB you choose, they are all the same size! This is especially convenient when packing your Pelican 1650s for location shoots.
ABs offers a selection of stands, softboxes, wireless triggers, and other add-ons that will connect right up to these monolights, but just about any mainstream accessory manufacturer’s products will work. The one thing (as with any strobe) that you’ll need if you plan on using softboxes, are speedrings fitted for these particular lights.
We got our hands on a few of the B800s for testing, and propped them on a couple of Avenger A635B light stands, which were especially sturdy, but easily adjusted when necessary.
We used them for shooting photographing school kids. We’re talking roughly 500 kids, multiple exposures, nearly 2,500 total shots (shooting with 3 setups of 3 lights each), if my math is correct, that’s about 7,500 strobe pops . . . all without any failures! That’s pretty impressive. Not convincing enough? They handle this almost everyday.
The B800s produce 320 true wattseconds and 800 effective wattseconds of power, with 14,000 lumenseconds of output. Each light is independently adjustable over a 5 f-stop range (full power to 1/32).
The Alien Bees all have a built-in cooling fan, ready for heavy all-day shooting conditions, and depending on the model, you get recycle times to full power in as little as 0.5 seconds (B400). The bees also feature “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” modeling lamps, which can be set as recycling indicators (which we didn’t use, but to each his own).
ABs can also be portably powered with the Vagabond Portable Power System, if you find yourself in an area without power (here’s that external power supply we mentioned earlier, except this one is optional).
I can’t seem to find it now, but I recall seeing something about a “trade-up” program, where you can receive credit and trade up your lower rated (B400 for example) monolight for a more powerful model (B800 for example).
Alien bees come with a reflector, a case, sync cord, power cord, gel clips, and an owners manual. Oh, and don’t forget the 2-Year Warranty!
The manufacturer website offers discounts to students (10% off), and accessory discounts for everyone else, which increase with the more lights you buy.
With a price of only $225 for the B400, $280 for the B800, $360 for the B1600, and a 60-day satisfaction guarantee . . . you’re sure to be “abducted” by another hit from Paul C. Bluff, Inc. In fact, we’ve decided to buy a couple sets!