TEST: PROFOTO PRO 7B

PROFOTO  PRO 7B BATTERY OPERATED POWER PACK

The heavy duty Profoto PRO 7B has been for years the standard of rental studios and the most used portable equipment for the most demanding photographers worldwide.

  

I bought mine for its reputation (Profoto is well known for its heavy duty equipment) and because it was the fastest on the market to recycle (2.8 sec at max power, 1 sec. at min power) and for its flash duration (1/1400 sec. at max power, 1/3000 sec. at min power) and this power pack is perfect for me as I mostly shoot on location people walking or running or jumping. 

The Pb battery offers 250 charge cycles at maximum power which means that you need to have at least one spare battery when you shoot on location, but now it's possible to buy the new Profotolithium ion iron phosphate battery which is 1/3rd lighter and offers 1200 charge cycles.

The new battery also works with Pro-B2, and Pro-B3 power generators . 

I used to work hard with it as you can see it in the picture here, but the Pro 7B was built for hard work and a few bumps don't scare it!

I use to shoot very fast, sometimes I shoot continuously until the battery is discharged and both the power pack and the head don't overheat even they do not have ventilation system. In any case, I suggest you do to do this only in case of emergency, in the past I used to burst many heads of another brand because I used to shoot too fast!

The Pro-7B is also made to shoot many flashes at a very fast recycling rate, without shifting color temperature or power output.

The only issue I encountered in 13 years was the power supply connector broken which I solved buying a 10 cents connector in a hardware store and changing it by myself...

If I have to find a fault, this is 

the cable which very soon it started to twist. So when the cables of my two Pro 7B heads and the cable extension  started to look like pig tales, I called Profoto assistance in Italy but they replied me that they could do nothing about it because the functionality was not affected. And this is true actually but they look very bad as you can see in the picture and at the end of the day it is hard to roll them. I thought their answer was very strange because I had heard that the Profoto service was very efficient and certainly would not have wanted one of its products go around in such bad conditions...

I have been using always the same battery and I often mistreated it using probably in the wrong way. in fact many times which I didn't had a spare battery with me, I used to shoot with the power pack plugged in, and this is deprecated by Profoto which provide an adapter for that.

Now after 13 years the battery suffer from memory effect and after a full charge the power level indicate always red.

Despite this today I tested the battery and I had to shoot 180 continuous full power flashes before it discharged and the first 170 use to have a recycling time of about 2,8 sec. , not bad for a teenager battery!

The Pro 7B head is very small and it mount the same light shaper of all the Profoto heads.
This means that I can mount the same reflector both on the Pro 7B head and on my old Pro5 heads which was phased out around in 1997!








The knob to set the inclination of the head is too small in my opinion, in fact if you use a big and heavy light shaper, you have to tighten a lot and this is difficult to do with a small knob, but this is something you can deal with.








In conclusion The Profoto 7B was quite expensive but It allowed me to raise the level of my photos allowing me to do things I could not do without it, and it was one of my best deals considering how much I used it and considering its current condition which will allow me to use it for many more years!  

 OVERVIEW

•  The power output is variable from 1200 w/s to 18 w/s (7 F-stops) in 1/6 stop increments.
•  Each fully charged battery will provide 250 flashes at full 1200 Watt/second output with the Pb battery, 1200 flashes at full 1200 Watt/second output with the life battery.
• The battery may be charged from a wall outlet in any country in the world, using the battery charger which is supplied with four different removable plug adapters.
• The battery may be charged directly from an automobile cigarette lighter with the optional 12V DC automobile charger.
• Stop action with 1/1400 sec. at full power to 1/3000 sec. at minimum power.
• Requires only 2.8 seconds to recycle at full power.
• Power can be symmetrically or asymmetrically distributed through two lampheads.
• Switchable acoustic signal "beeps" when unit is fully recycled. Also the "Test" button lights up when the power supply is ready to fire.
• Switchable slave enables synchronization with other flash sources.
• 100W modeling light is powered for 20 seconds before automatic cut-off, conserving battery power.
• Charges the battery while shooting, allowing significantly more flashes (with adapter).