I’ve been thinking about upgrading my lighting system for a while. However the more I think about it, I’ve realized that what I really need is to augment it.

Currently, I’ve got a big White Lightning 3200 that I use as my key light at my place and a couple small Alien Bees (400, 800) that I use for secondary lights and on location. I’m a fairly simple lighting guy. Playing with 3-4 lights is fun, but quickly becomes more of an interesting enginering problems than taking pictures.  So most of the time I stick with one light, just like old paintings. The only reason I need that much power in the main light I’ve got now was to use a big octabox with my 4×5 and polaroid 55, which was rated at iso 25 for the negative.  However I’ve only got a handful of slices of that left and most of the time I use the thing at 1/4 power or less anyway (sometimes way less that 1/4).

They’re fine for my personal studio work and when I’m on a big job there’s always a budget to rent big Profoto Pro7A’s or some other similarly crazily priced gizmo.  What I need is something between my big strobes and the couple of speedlights I use for most quick and dirty gigs.  Preferably battery powered and still small enough that an assistant could carry it in a bag.

So I’ve been looking at and reading about the ProFoto Acute-B 600 for a couple months now.  $2000 for the pack, and about $800 for the head.. I figured with a decent bag to carry it all in, I’m looking at 3 grand. Certainly not cheap, but it’s for work and I need to buy things to write-off at the end of the year anyway.  However I was at a camera store this morning and the woman said that there was a deal currently running where you get the pack and head for $1999.  That’s more like it.

Before I pull the trigger though, I wanted to see if anyone had any experience with this setup, good or bad.  I’ve found a few little reviews online, most positive.

http://briansmithphotogear.blogspot.com/2007/02/profoto-acute-600b.html

http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157611180180194/

Thoughts anyone?