Most powerful portable battery powered flash?

[Doug A]

What modified flash puts out the most UV? It has to be battery powered portable and relatively easy to modify. Saw @Adrian using 4 Metz plus a small flash in his presentation. He was getting F11 ISO 400 at a few feet away. Amazing. Really enjoyed his presentation.

Thanks,

Doug A

[colinbm]

First you need an un-coated Xenon flash. The coating has a faint straw / gold colour.

 

[Adrian]

Doug,

Thank you for the kind words re. my presentation! I use Metz flash guns (45 CT1 etc) for the following reasons:

1. They are powerful (not sure if they are the most powerful portables?)

2. They are very easy to modify (just four screws to remove the UV/IR window)

3. They are relatively easily found on eBay, and cheap (I pay around £25 for them)

 

I have several "versions": full spectrum with no filter (for UVR); IR with an old Kodak Wratten IR filter over the tube; UVF (with an old Kodak 18A Woods Glass filter, cut in half, over the tube). I now have 12 of them!

I put them onto Manual, full power, and trigger them with peanut style "slave" cells. I fire the Metz guns via a Nikon flash on top of the camera, as their trigger voltage is high.

If you buy one make sure it has a spare battery pack for you to put your own rechargeable batteries in (the original NiCds will almost certainly be useless by now!)

 

For other members, here is the picture of my "standard" UVR set up for flowers referred to in the original posting