= Lighting =

So I want some studio strobes.

Considered:
 * Elinchrom
 * Glanz (cheapies)
 * Paul C. Buff

Buff makes the Alienbees series, which might be a more familiar name to some. They look to be a little cheaper than Elinchrom, should be at least on par in terms of product quality, and sound like really smart, switched-on people.

There are some other big brands out there like Bowens, Profoto and Multiblitz. They're hella-expensive though.

The Buff gear looks like the way to go. They have a local distributor, and their markups are kinda... bad. The US store won't sell here though. Get the lights locally and procure the accessories some other way?

|| '''Item'''  || '''US''' || '''Local''' ||
|| lights      || 500      || 700         ||
|| stands      || 40       || 74          ||
|| brollys     || 30       || 66          ||
|| reflectors  || 15       || 38          ||
|| grid        || 25       || 57          ||
|| receivers   || 30       || 54          ||
|| commander   || 180      || 260         ||
|| carry bags? || 13       || ??          ||


Popped an order in, 2011-08-02. Website is... not impressive. Two timeout errors about being unable to contact the payment provider before finally succeeding, and a blank section where it's meant to say "A confirmation email was sent to the address:  <BLANK>"

Tried again on 2011-08-03, after giving them a call. They confirmed my suspicion that the website was having issues yesterday, I feel much better now. Placed the order again, no hassles this time. \o/

|| 2x || Einstein                 || E640  || $699.00 each || 1398.01 ||
|| 2x || 7" reflector             || 7AB/R ||  $37.40 each ||   74.80 ||
|| 1x || 10-degree honeycomb grid || HG10  ||  $57.20 each ||   57.20 ||
|||| Shipping         || || ||  70.00 ||
|||| Package discount || || || -30.60 ||
|||| '''Total'''      || || || '''1569.41''' ||