Pro-8a Air review - Australia

An independent review of Profoto Pro-8a Air vs Broncolor Scoro

Nick Rains,  Montalbetti & Campbell

"We have rented a lot of Bron equipment so I have become more familiar with them & we have mixed both Profoto along with Bron on many shoots. This test shoot between the Scoro & the Pro-8a Air was a real eye opener for us. Not only was the flash duration similar ( we always rented Bron for that purpose prior to this test ), we both felt the light quality was better for our style with the Profoto. So we have been renting the Pro-8a Air if we need to freeze action in the studio. For the test we used the same light shapers & found the light from the Bron was too harsh while the Profoto has sort of a glow almost painterly feel to it."

excerpt: Flash Pack Shootout
I was expecting to see some signifcant diferences between these two high-end systems, but as the preceding article suggests, there is very little to choose between them.  Both cost about the same to rent, and on paper the Broncolor Scoro claims 3200J against the Profoto Pro-8A’s 2400J. From shooting both it seems that this 1/2 stop diference is not readily apparent.
The Scoro recharges a tiny bit faster – 0.8 sec vs 0.9sec which is negligible really.  Both can take a full commercial workload, continuing to pump out full power discharges hour after hour.Denis Montalbetti thought that the light quality from the Profoto was superior; certainly it was slightly more wrap-around, but the heads did not have the exact same difusers over the tubes which might account for this.

 If it’s short fash duration that you need, then the Profoto has the edge. At full power it’s 1/1600, as opposed to 1/240th for the Scoro and at about 4-stops down from max power, the Profoto is still up around the
1/12000 mark whilst the Scoro only achieves this at its lowest power settings.  I’d call this a dead heat, both are excellent professional outfts that will do the job reliably and with no fuss. Buy either one and you will be completely satisfed.

read more: http://www.scribd.com/doc/25363904/BDC35-CoverShoot