A Firsthand Review on the Falcon Eyes MF-45
I got my Falcon Eyes MF-45 Mini Strobe kit two weeks ago, and I’ve been shooting a lot of “strobist” frenzy lately.
The MF-45 set was just a freebie from a Christmas promo of Aperture Trading, if you’d buy a Falcon Eyes 42″ 5-in-1 Circular Reflector for only P3000. So all in all I got:
- 1 Falcon Eyes 42″ 5-in-1 Circular Reflector
- 1 Falcon Eyes MF-45 Mini Strobe
- 1 Lamp holder
- 1 Medium light stand
- 1 32″ umbrella
All of these for only P3000 bucks! If you’d buy the MF-45 set alone, its worth P2700!!! Now this is one hell of a deal, so I didn’t let it pass!
The strobe kit is very easy to use, its light and handy and is easy and quick to set up and dismantle. The 45w power is strong enough to do portraits and product photos – and I even used it with group pictures too! I love doing one-light portraits, its the simplest and classic form of lighting – and the MF-45 does the job really well, and just add the use of a reflector, you’d get superb portraits with such a basic kind of light.
Although it has limitations like having no modeling light (compared to studio strobe units) which means you have to use your imagination do a series of test shots (thanks for digital technology!) in order to see where the light will hit in your subject when the strobe pops out. Also, it has fixed power – this is what I miss with a studio light, but what can we expect, its just a mini strobe after all, so come in the use diffusers, gobo, and other light modifiers, and the old pushing or pulling the light away from the subject to control the power is you would find it too strong. Lastly, it only relies on 220v power – and is not battery operated (as compared to using external flash units as strobe slaves), so you are limited only to shoot with in an area where you have power sockets to plug the unit to. So outdoor shoots can be quite limited unless you’d have a long extension socket to connect to. But then again, it is just a mini strobe – but its one hell of a good strobe indeed!
Its one of your cheapest and effective option to have a studio like setup, and a very cheap way to do off-camera flash slave photography. I might get another set (mf-45) and will be integrating this system to my wedding and fashion assignments.
Here’s some shots where I tested the MF-45 set in a school pictorial I did this past week.
Will be posting some more shots using the MF-45 later on, I’m still on the process of testing it on other photo projects.
that’s a pretty good off camera lit setup
Yup it is indeed. Now, I always bring this setup in my assignments. Its a must have gear – a portable lighting setup that is lite and easy to use.
sir ,may i ask…im using a d40 unit..& im also planning to buy dis mini strobe unit as a slave flash..how can i control it?..does it have a pocket wizard control system?..thnx 4 ur tym..anyway nice portraits
Its just a slave built in the strobe. So it can be triggered by any flash, you may use any external flash units attached to your camera or even the camera’s built-in flash (in manual mode) to trigger the strobe. You don’t need pocket wizards for this.
But sir,they say that this strobe only shoots after the built-in flash pops up..it has some delays on the strobe..how can u able to trigger both built in flash & mf-45 at the same time..or by using external flash to trigger both mf-45 at exact same tym?
There are cam bodies wherein you can set your built-in flash in Manual mode, this way you can turn-off the Pre-Flash so you can trigger the strobe and the built-in flash at the same time.
If your camera does not support this feature then it would be better if you use an external flash unit (which you can toggle pre-flash off in Manual mode).
thnx for the enlightenmnet