Elinchrom One Review

If you've been keeping an eye on my social media, you may have noticed that I've been lucky enough to borrow the Elinchrom One dual kit system for the past two months. I contacted Elinchrom myself earlier in the year, because I wanted a chance to test out their lights. I'd seen them floating around, and been genuinely considering buying them myself, but as with everything, I felt like I needed to give them a good go before I did.

The team at Elinchrom were genuinely so kind, and said yes when I asked if I could borrow the kit for a while, test it out, but also share how I got on with them with you all.

I should preface this by saying that I haven't been paid, and I'm not being gifted the lights (they're being sent back in a week or so!). I'm also not being given any commission or anything if you purchase the lights as a result of reading this. These are purely my thoughts and experiences with the lights, and I thought you might also benefit from hearing them.

What are they?

The Elinchrom One lights are Elinchrom's newest off camera flash system. They are battery powered, but unlike some of their other lights, they don't require an external battery pack. That makes them super easy to carry around, lightweight and practical for all kinds of settings.

The Details

The ONE lights have in built batteries, which means that you simply plug the whole light into a plug, or a power bank to charge them. Most other battery powered lights come with external batteries that you remove from the light, plug into a charger, and charge (like you would a camera battery).

Some people love that, others really don't. I can see how the ability to have multiple batteries, can be useful (because you can own multiple batteries and keep them charged at all times, and simply replace as and when needed). However, in my experience, the batteries on the ONE have been pretty good, and they do charge from a regular powerbank, so can be topped up quite easily. If you're in a studio, you can also plug the lights into the mains to keep their charge topped up.

One of the big worries that I had about the lights before trying them out was their power output. I read a lot of other reviews, and everyone said that their 131Ws of power wasn't enough for many shooting situations. If you are someone who loves LOTS of light and really needs lights that push out a ton of power, then these might not be for you.

But honestly, for me? They've delivered 100%. I've used them in a big studio, in my living room, on location, and they've more than delievered on power. In fact, I've never pushed them to their full capacity, because I never needed that much light.

For my style, they've been perfect. So if you're worried, I'd hire them out for a few days, see how you get on, and take it from there!

Creativity

One of the main reasons that I was so keen to test these out was I'd never owned any battery powered flash before. I've always had my mains powered light (which is a Storm 400 II by Pixapro, if you're wondering), and it's served me really well. But when you're limited to having to plug into a plug in a wall… it really does mean that you can't experiment a whole lot. I found myself wanting to bring flash on location, particularly outdoors, and that just wasn't easy to do with the light that I owned. Having the ONE's available to me at any moment throughout the past two months has been a game changer. Suddenly it was easy to head out to a cliff edge with some friends on a Saturday evening and shoot at sunset. Bringing the lights with me as back up to a client shoot was easy, because I knew that I could pull them out from my bag at any moment, switch them on, and shoot. I didn't realise how much I'd adore the creativity that having lights like these offers me! That's been the biggest game changer for me, and I now know how important they are for me to have in my kit.

Gel Domes

As well as being allowed to borrow the ONE lights, Elinchrom kindly allowed me to borrow their newly released OCF Gel Dome's. These are coloured gels that clip onto the front of the light. They're SO easy to use, and although I've only used the orange and yellow domes (the other colours just don't suit my style of work), I've enjoyed having the chance to play with them.

I probably wouldn't purchase these myself, as I just don't think that I'd get enough use out of them. But if you're someone who loves to get really creative with gels, and use lots of different colours in your shoots, these would be perfect for you!

Other Benefits

Apart from the above, I've got to give a quick mention about how pretty these lights are. That might not be the most important thing to many of you, but it actually is important to me. The lights I've previously had have always been a big bulky, clunky and ugly. I've never loved getting them out on set. The ONE lights are small, sleek, the way they light up is pretty, and I genuinely love getting them out. The backpack that the dual kit comes in is also great. They fit snuggly in there, and there's a laptop area inside, so it doubles up nicely as a useful bag as well. The lights themselves are small and only weigh 1.5KG, so when my friend Lou and I were shooting on location, and climbing about on rocks, it wasn't hard to just hand hold the lights for one another whilst we shot.

Cost

I've been using the dual kit, which means that the kit comes with two light heads. This kit also comes with the backpack, the chargers, and the clear dome. From what I can see online, that costs £1719 via The Flash Centre (who are their main UK stockist). A single head will cost you £859. As with all photography equipment, these things aren't cheap, but the Elinchrom ONE also aren't the most expensive (by far), which was another reason that I was so interested in them.

Final Thoughts

WOW, if you've got this far, well done! I haven't written anything this long in ages! But I had a lot to say and I know that a lot of you were curious to hear how I got on, so I didn't want to leave anything out. Honestly, I love these lights. I wish I didn't have to send them back! I don't really have anything negative to say about them at all. They've been so handy, so easy to use, so practical, and so much fun. If you've been looking for some battery powered lights to add to your kit, then I really would recommend taking a look at the Elinchrom ONE kit.