A very late reply, but one I felt was worth mentioning: modeling lights are only as useful as the proportionality of the modeling light. I recently picked up a used Profoto 500/500ws D1 Air kit from Lensauthority.com (they have another kit for sale last I checked earlier today...) and I'm thrilled. The umbrellas aren't very big and the stands are a little tired, but the lights themselves are fantastic and so is the Air Remote. One caveat: on the D1s, the modeling light is either OFF, PROP (proportional to the intensity dialed into the flash) or FREE (you adjust the intensity across a six-stop range [yes, they call it seven stops, I call it six], but they don't change proportionate to flash intensity adjustments. Just use PROP, you say? Sure, except if you're integrating two monolights (key, fill) with two speedlights (hair, background color). I did a shoot last week (second real shoot with the new monolights) at 1/200th, f/5.6, ISO 100. At reasonable working distances for solo/duo bust shots, I was running the key light three stops below max, so about 40W or so. In a ballroom, 40W of modeling light isn't going to compete well with overhead lights, so you can't really see what you're going to get. (For the curious, I put a PW Flex on the camera, and the Air Remote on the PW. That gave me trigger capability but no easy way to remote-control the speedlights.)Originally Posted by Dr Croubie
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