Today, Profoto announced the new Profoto A1.
This incredibly small flash unit is the latest in a long line of amazing lighting tools from Profoto. I remember the first time I used Profoto equipment, I was a relatively new photo assistant and was hired to work on a commercial portrait gig in Miami Florida. The photographer had a Profoto Acute and while I had never used the system before, it took me all of 5 minutes to figure out how to operate the pack. After a few months of working with various types and levels of photographer I had used everything in their line-up.
It wasn’t unusual those days, and still isn’t today for a photographer to ask you if are familiar with Profoto. The stuff is everywhere! And for good reason. Profoto has proven themselves to be of the highest quality and extremely reliable when put to task by photographers, professional or otherwise.
Why do I bring this up? Well, back then, if you had told me Profoto would become a leader in TTL flash with battery powered products like the Profoto B1, B1x, and B2 and the D2 AC powered monolight and someday produce a flash that could sit comfortably in the hotshoe of your camera, I would have never believed it. Time has changed our industry, technology has seen to that, with cameras becoming smaller, ISO capabilities getting better and the need to work fast becoming the standard. All the while, Profoto is still leading the way.
I’m going to get this out of the way up front, IMO the Profoto A1 is not a speed light. Yup… you know you were thinking that. While the A1 can sit nicely on your hot shoe, it is designed to be a shaped. After all, this is Profoto and we know their tag line. The round face of the A1 provides a nice natural falloff and that alone is an improvement of the rectangular speed light design, but this is just the beginning, the A1 works with a number of accessories that attach magnetically to the head allowing for quick and simple light shaping. Since the flash and shapers have been designed together you are not simply putting something in front of your light to make it look better, you are SHAPING it.
More on the accessories in a minute.
Let’s talk about batteries. No longer will you need to carry around piles of AA’s. The Profoto A1 works with a Lithium-Ion battery that is about the same size in your pocket as 4 AA’s but lasts significantly longer, giving you around 350 full powered flashes per charge with no fade in performance (we’ve all had our speedlights slow down halfway through a shoot because of dying batteries). The A1 Battery snaps on the front of the unit and can be switched in seconds. This battery charges in 80 minutes so depending on your workload one spare is likely all you’ll need to keep around. Sure, I could say you won’t need a spare, but to not have a spare battery, no matter how infrequently you’ll use it is really not smart. During my tests I shot around 400 photos over the course of two hours and still had about 1/3 battery remaining, much of this was in bright daylight, even at full power the flash take barely more than a second to recycle, so I was able to shoot at a steady pace, not constantly waiting for the flash.
For those of you who use the Profoto OCF line, the user interface of the A1 will be very familiar. To those who don’t, you’ll pick it up in minutes. The menus are simple and clear and there are not many of them. Control the TTL ratio, Control off camera flashes, use the modeling light, switch to Rear Curtain or High Speed Sync. All these things and a few others can be accomplished quickly and easily with the large menu screen that takes up most of the back of the unit. The beauty of Profoto’s TTL system though is that you don’t even need to mess with the menus if you are looking for “correctly” exposed images in most cases. The flash, on camera or off, will give you a good exposure right out of the gate. But if you need to adjust your exposure for extreme or artistic situations, a simple turn of the dial and you are good.
One thing you don’t need the menu for though is changing the unit from TTL to Manual, there is a small switch on the side of the A1 that allows you to do this without even removing the camera from your eye. Since profoto TTL keeps it’s setting when switched from TTL to Manual, this is a great and fast way to work, getting your exposure down quickly with the TTL and “locking it in” with the manual switch for situations in which TTL might be adjust exposure each frame (heavily backlit situations for instance).
If you are a current user of the Profoto Air-TTL system, you can use your remote to fire the A1 off camera or place the A1 on your camera in place of your remote and control all of your off camera units. This not only gives you a simple on camera fill in most cases, it also adds auto-focus assist and a modeling light if you need some help in darker environments.
Working with a speedlight on camera often produces harsh and unflattering results and even though the round head of the A1 makes for a nicer light overall, I found the included accessories really helped push the results into a much more natural, beautiful feeling light. As noted, the A1 uses a magnetic mount for quick addition of these light shapers and I found myself using the Dome Diffuser whenever the flash was on camera or I wanted a softer feel to the light. The Dome Diffuser spreads the light out in a much wider area allowing for some natural bounce from the environment like a white wall, ceiling or even a bounce reflector you may chose to have an assistant or even the subject hold. Even when pointing the dome directly at the subject, you will find it helps clean up the highlights on skin, no surprise there as that is one of the properties of diffusion. For further control, the A1 has a zoom head that can be set to automatically match your lens or positioned manually for total creative control of your flash coverage.
I found myself using the combination of the Dome Diffuser and Bounce Card when working by myself with the A1 on camera. This gave me a nice diffused directional light that almost filled itself because of the wrapping natural of bounced light and snappy nature of the direct dome. You can also add color correction gels to the A1 to add some creative flair or match your environment. The Wide lens, though designed for group shots, was useful to me when I had the A1 on a stand close to my subject and needed nice punchy light but with more coverage than the bare head provided. I could also see using this in combination with the bounce card for a bit of a different feel.
Having used the Profoto B2 kit now for about a year, I can say that even when I don’t plan on using lighting, I take it with me 60% of the time, the kit is small and even if I don’t think I’m going to light something it’s always nice to have lights just in case. Those times where I don’t bring it and wish I did are going to be a thing of the past, because I can easily throw an A1 (or even two!) in my camera bag and always be ready to get the shot I want, not forced to work only with the available light. Missing shots because I don’t have a light will be a thing of the past.
All in all the Profoto A1 did not disappoint. My nature is to immediately take my flash off camera and the A1 performed perfectly as an off camera light, both on a stand and held by an assistant while I roamed around. Knowing many people would use this on camera though I was sure to set up a simple one on one portrait session and use the A1 in this way and was really blown away by how simple it was to produce natural looking fill light outside that didn’t feel like “camera flash”.
Our exclusive video on Adorama TV:
For those who like tech stuff, here’s the specifications as listed by Profoto:
A1 AirTTL
- Max energy: 76Ws
- Energy range: 9 f-stops (2.0-10)
- HSS energy range: 9 f-stops (2.0-10)
- Flash recycling time: 0.05-1.2s
- Battery capacity: Up to 350 full power flashes
- Battery charging time: Up to 80 minutes
- Weight: 560g / 1,2 lb including battery
Here’s what you get in the box:
- 1 × A1 AirTTL (either Canon or Nikon, Sony in the future) / Product No. 901201/901202
- 1 x Li-Ion Battery for A1 / Product No. 100397
- 1 × Battery Charger for A1 incl. power cable / Product No. 100398
- 1 x Bounce Card / Product No. 101223
- 1 x Dome Diffuser / Product No. 101222
- 1 x Wide Lens / Product No. 101224
- 1 × A1 Bag / Product No. 340217
- 1 x A1 Flash Stand
- 1 x USB Micro Cable
The Profoto A1 is now available for preorder, only at Adorama.
