Gear Necessities: stock up with a Profoto flash, To-Go kit, and beauty dish

Here in Gear Necessities, we bring you the latest and greatest offers and equipment for you to stock up your kit with. This time, we’ve been alerted to three pieces of Profoto gear for you to check out.

Profoto B1 500 AirTTL battery-powered flash

This powerful portable unit is a light that has changed the way many photographers work. Based on Profoto’s popular D1 Air series of monolights, the B1 has the same durable, polymer housing, integrated 77-degree reflector, and built-in Air receivers as the D1 but with two marked differences — wireless portability and through-the-lens (TTL) camera/flash integration.
The Profoto B1 is battery powered and wirelessly synced, while still offering powerful core performance. Ten times as powerful as your average speed light, it recycles in under two seconds, and can deliver up to 20 flashes per second in Quick Burst Mode. Flash duration is a rapid 1/1000th of a second, while its Freeze Mode function captures objects in motion in flashes as short as 1/19,000th of a second.

With its wireless TTL battery pack, the B1 is not a standard lighting kit — given the flexibility of shooting in-studio or far away, it’s a single indoor/outdoor strobe solution. 
Complete the kit and get full wireless TTL operation with the purchase of a dedicated Air Remote TTL transmitter, compatible with Canon or Nikon cameras. When it’s attached to the camera’s hot shoe, there’s no need for light metering — meaning that even the first shot’s a keeper. 

Profoto B2 250 Air TTL To-Go kit

After the wide success of the B1, Profoto has since released another game-changing product, the Profoto B2 — a small and lightweight off-camera flash system that’s designed specifically for on-location shoots. It’s so compact, in fact, that Profoto describes it as the first off-camera flash that can be used on-camera, too.

Designed to add a little or a lot of extra light, the B2 can be utilized as a subtle fill or can stand on its own, as its built-in reflector casts a wide and even spread of light. While at 250 watts it delivers half the power of its forerunner, it has all the features that made the B1 much loved by photographers. Like its big brother, the B2 also features TTL, as well as high-speed sync for shutter speeds of up to 1/8000th of a second.

With the To-Go kit containing the B2 250 Air TTL battery pack, a B2 head, lithium-ion battery, and location bag, it has photographers sorted for any situation — where and how you shoot is up to you.

Profoto OCF Beauty Dish

When Profoto released its Softlight Reflector in the ’80s, fashion photographers soon nicknamed it — and similar designs — the ‘beauty dish’, due to its unique ability to veil the face in soft, flattering light. Since then, the beauty dish has grown to become one of the most iconic tools for creating striking portraits, with light that’s creamy yet crisp. 

Since then, Profoto has released the OCF Beauty Dish — a collapsible and more portable version of Profoto’s classic precursor. Tailor-made for on-location photography, the OCF Beauty Dish is both lightweight and compact — it weighs in at just under half a kilo and collapses to fit within a small backpack. Plus, its unique design allows it to snap onto its speed ring, without any bending and fumbling with rods, which guarantees a fast and easy set-up.
Available in both white and silver, the OCF Beauty Dish comes with a deflector plate, optional diffuser and carrying bag.

White Studios is the New Zealand dealer for Profoto gear. For the full range of Profoto flash kits and modifiers — available for both purchase and hire — visit whitestudios.co.nz.