Elinchrom has officially launched its brand new battery powered monolight, the Elinchrom Five. Designed for photographers who prefer to work without wires, it’s perfect for shooting on location or in a studio thanks to its consistent, high-quality illumination.
The Elinchrom Five – which follows the launch of the fantastic Elinchrom One last year – is a 500-watt monolight capable of 450 full-power flashes on a single charge, but when shooting at a much lower power setting it’s capable of firing thousands of flashes. It can be plugged into a USB-C power source so you can continue shooting even when the battery is low, which is perfect for when using in a studio environment.
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Unlike some studio lights, the Elinchrom Five benefits from a really simple menu layout that can be controlled with buttons on the back of the flash head or from the Elinchrom Skyport Plus trigger. With a lightning-fast recycle time of just 1.6s, photographers are able to shoot almost constantly even on full power – and the lower the power setting, the faster the recycle time.
It features a 26W bi-color LED modeling lamp with an adjustable color temperature from 2,700K to 6,500K, an output of 4,000 lumens, and a CRI rating of 95, making it ideal for static video interviews or shooting in dark environments. Photographers can use the Elinchrom Five with a range of S-type light shapers, such as the Elinchrom Rotalux softboxes or an umbrella, and the unconcealed flash tube ensures that light spread is optimum.
For sports and action photographers, it features a high-speed sync (HSS) mode that can fire at 1/8000 of a second in order to freeze motion. TTL can also be used if you would prefer to let the light automatically gauge how bright the flash needs to be, using your camera's exposure settings.
For easy configuration, the Elinchrom Five can be controlled via the Elinchrom Studio App where you can set groups, power settings, load presets and update the firmware. To make group identification really easy, you can turn on a color-coded system in the menu so that the Elinchrom logo on each light glows a different color depending on the group.
Included in the box is the Elinchrom Five monolight, a 65W USB-C charger, a 16cm umbrella reflector, a carry case and a rechargeable battery. Lights can be purchased in either a one or two-head kit for $1,849 / £1,619 or $3,649 / £3,219 respectively (Australian pricing to be confirmed). The Elinchrom Skyport remote and any light-shaping accessories must be purchased separately.
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