I picked up these old White Lightening 10,000 strobes on Craig’s list for $200.    Included with the strobes were a case, PC sync cables, two 13 foot air cushioned light stands that were still in the box and plastic, a set of optical triggers,  and a pair of Calumet umbrellas.

The strobes are in amazingly good shape. They don’t look like they’ve been used much in their long life.  There are no dings, dents, scuffs, or other abuse visible on them.  They just look great!

The White-lighting.com website describes them this way: The WL Series (affectionately known as the “coffee cans”) were first introduced in 1983, offering enormous advancements to the photographic lighting industry. Housed in drawn aluminum with a white epoxy finish, these stunning “white lights” caught on quickly. Brought to the market directly from the manufacturer to the customer, the WL Series units introduced the power, the performance, and the outstanding level of service and support that build our company’s reputation.
specifications.

I think mine were probably some of the ones introduced in 1983!   They have serial numbers with just three digits!   You can still get replacement flash tubes for them on the White Lightening website.  Okay, compared to current technology strobes they’re not very fast to recover and they only have 1/3, 2/3, and full power settings.   Output  wise, they seem to fall between the Alien Bee 400 and Alien Bee 800.  I think I got a really good deal on them and they are just way cool!

The first thing I did was put them to use to try and do a white back ground self- portrait.   It’s a little over exposed on the right side of my face probably because I’m too close to the light and it’s kicking back from the backdrop or I don’t have them gobo’d enough to keep the light from coming back around the sides.

Here’s a setup shot for the white background self portrait. The new WL10ks are in the back aimed at the sheet used for a background.  They have a “hobo – gobo” wrapped around them that helped to reduce the spill on my right side but didn’t eliminate it so I’ve got work to do there.  The beauty dish is loaded with a SB800 in SU-4 optical trigger mode on 1/8 power.  This is the same DIY Beauty Dish that put this site on the map.  On camera right is a SB600 shooting through a Lumiquest III fold up soft box set as low as it would go for fill.   There is also a white foam board on the table to get a little bit of under the chin fill included too.   Other than the SB800 everything else was triggered using the e-Bay poverty wizards.