Last Updated on 03/21/2023 by Chris Gampat
A long time ago, I was a Paul C Buff lover. For years, the Einstein E640 was my favorite light to use. But after a while, I got annoyed by the Vagabond mini packs and the fact that you couldn’t use the modeling light with them. Then the other lighting companies just ended up making better lights. And it wasn’t until this year that I got to test a new unit from the company. The Paul C Buff Celestial light is the company’s newest. But trust me, this thing has problems.
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As the Editor in Chief and Publisher of the site, I transparently let people know that I’ll always lean more toward our credibility instead of advertising dollars. Before this light was announced, we were approached with the opportunity to work together on a campaign. However, Buff went with other outlets. Without naming them, I checked out the coverage while testing the unit for myself. And I can say that many of the flaws that the Paul C Buff Celestial has were glanced over in their video and coverage.
This light isn’t all that bad. But for the money, there are much better options made out there. However, if you’re all in for the Made in the USA mentality, then you should consider this as their customer service is a shining standard that Profoto only wishes they could have (direct access to Cluff Hausner being the exception.)
Table of Contents
The Big Picture
The Paul C Buff Celestial aligns the company with many of what other lighting companies do. And that’s it. It gives affordable TTL to Canon cameras and one other. But support for even more is coming in the future. At this point, they’re very late to the party and bringing an appetizer when everyone is already eating dessert. Even if I was a previous Paul C Buff light owner, I wouldn’t necessarily see a reason to get it.
So what does it do well? The Paul C Buff Celestial delivers beautiful lighting when using it in manual mode. It’s also pretty affordable, with several trade-offs.
Overall, the Paul C Buff Celestial receives two out of five stars. I wouldn’t get this one if I were you.
Pros
- Affordable
- Made in America
- Connects tBluetoothth for updates
- The hub is pretty good, but has a few issues with start up and pales in comparison to what other brands do
- The light output can look beautiful
Cons
- The mount is incredibly annoying to use, but also very smartly designed.
- The most difficult holder I’ve ever used for umbrellas. Buff reps told me to stick a screwdriver in there to loosen the unit, but it still wasn’t enough for Westcott umbrellas.
- TTL doesn’t work with Canon’s ETTL II Average metering. Only with evaluative.
- When you are physically very close to the light, the TTL goes haywire and doesn’t work.
- Sometimes needs to dump all the power when shooting much more often than other lights.
- The hub isn’t all that great at controlling the light output. The app is better.
- The most unreliable TTL I’ve worked with
- The hub doesn’t give you any sort of confirmation of when it’s charging as you plug it into a charging USB-C cable
Gear Used with the Paul C Buff Celestial
The Paul C Buff Celestial light and the umbrella we used was a loaner from Paul C Buff. We tested it with the Canon EOS R, Canon G1x Mk III, and 50mm f1.4 L USM; which are our own pieces of gear. We also used the Canon EOS R5 and the 24-105mm f4 L IS USM; which are on long-term loan from Canon.
Innovations
Quite honestly, nothing is innovative about the Paul C Buff Celestial light. It’s playing catch up to the market and is more or less a TTL version of the Einstein E640 light. Yes, it’s only $649. But for a little bit more money, you could get a better light from either Elinchrom or Profoto.
Ergonomics
Here’s a look at the Paul C Buff Celestial. The front of the light isn’t necessarily like a bunch of the others out there. But there is a frosted dome that protects the bulb. I’ll admit, this is a nice design that isn’t immediately apparent.
On the side, there is a latch that can quickly let you attach or detach a speed ring. There are also several buttons and a big dial for navigation.
Here’s what the Paul C Buff Celestial looks like when the screen and unit are powered on. The screen here isn’t touch-compatible and must be operated through the interface on the right or via an app on your phone. No, you can’t do it with the Paul C Buff Hub all that much.
Here’s the Paul C Buff Celestial, where you’ll find the detachable battery. There’s also a handle here for working with and modifying the light when it’s positioned on a stand. Notice how the umbrella holder is on top. For some, this might be odd.
On the back is also the infrared firing detector. But let’s be honest, folks probably aren’t going to use this.
Build Quality
This is a big, bulky unit. Additionally, it feels more delicate than those from Elinchrom and Profoto, as some areas of the Celestial feel airy inside. This is probably for heat distribution, but this unit has still gotten warm while we used it. It’s also not at all weather-resistant.
Perhaps one of the biggest problems here is using the hub. The hub is a large unit that has given me several issues with reliability and caused me to get on the phone with Buff support. They truly tried, but the problems persisted. Originally, they worked fine. But that stopped after a while, and I’m not sure why. When I’d put it into the hot shoe of three different Canon cameras, it wouldn’t fire. Thinking it was the camera, I tried other brands’ transmitters. But if I used Elinchrom or Profoto, I didn’t see a problem at all. If this gets fixed, the Celestial is on its way to being a good system.
Also, when I tried putting an umbrella into the umbrella holder, it broke one of the shafts.
Ease of Use
The Celestial is such a fascinating unit. If you’ve been using Buff lights for years, then it will be a piece of cake. But I’ve since moved on to Profoto and Elinchrom. So getting used to Buff’s way of doing things came back slowly. Buff is kind of a closed system that really just likes to play by their own rules. This is evident with the whole speed ring mounting system, for example.
Photographers will surely end up pressing a few combinations of buttons and turning dials to access and change the menus. It’s nowhere as simple as it is with Profoto and Elinchrom. However, it’s simple enough for most folks to figure out.
But my biggest issues come around the TTL usage. In a phone call with a rep, we figured out that TTL wasn’t working because of a firmware issue with the hub. I tried it with the Canon EOS R and EOS R5. Once the firmware was fixed, it started to work a bit better. However, on the phone together, we found some technical issues. The TTL issues become more apparent when you’re physically very close to the light. When I reference issues, I’m talking about the TTL just not working at all and the Celestial firing at full power. This is a problem that happened with older Profoto lights that has since been fixed with firmware. And hopefully, Paul C Buff will fix this in the future too.
However, that means your TTL won’t work effectively if you’re shooting in a confined space or if you have the flash very close to the transmitter. And in that case, you’re better off shooting in manual mode.
Let me tell you — when this thing dumps energy at full power, you physically feel it and hear it. The heat emanates from the Celestial, and I was able to both feel and smell it from a few feet away.
On an actual photo shoot, the TTL ended up being very unreliable with the pace of a candid headshot session. So after a brief stretch, I plugged the light into the wall to give it more power just in case. But still, that wasn’t working. “Oh, I see what you mean about the light being too bright,” is what my client sometimes said. She even visibly winced at how bright the light became at times.
However, it became much more reliable when I switched the light to manual mode. This, too, was annoying. A competing website’s video says to do manipulations via the app. But the trouble then becomes this: what if I don’t want to randomly pull out my phone during a shoot in front of a client? Then I have to explain that I’m adjusting the light. It makes more sense for me to visibly go, adjust the light, see what the photos look like, and then figure things out from there. But then I’m losing valuable shooting time. And only if you’re a trained professional will you figure things out in a way that doesn’t give your client the stress you’re feeling.
For the record, I won’t have this issue with Profoto’s TTL or with Elinchrom’s. In fact, I won’t have it with Godox’s or Flashpoint’s either.
The hub needs firmware updates, too, as at the moment of writing this, they haven’t fixed issues with the power-up screen looking very weird. You need to restart it if this occurs.
Image Quality
One of the cool things about the Paul C Buff Celestial is that is lets you have either color or speed priority. While the light looks good, so too does the light from every other camera system. How many people can tell if the light in a scene is natural or with an off-camera strobe? How many can tell if it’s LED or strobe? And more importantly, how many people can tell if the light is different from Profoto or Elinchrom? The answer is none.
With that aside, keep in mind all the other stuff. When using this light on a set with a person, I had to switch to manual mode, and that sometimes makes things difficult depending on where you are and how much light control you have. If you’re shooting for yourself or with something where manual mode is perfectly fine, then I think you’ll be okay. But it doesn’t make much sense that you’d buy this light for the TTL feature, and it won’t work. At that point, you’re better off just getting the Einstein instead.
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Who Should Buy the Paul C Buff Celestial?
I wouldn’t buy the Paul C Buff Celestial. They need to fix a lot of problems with it. And it might be better once that’s the case. At the moment though, there are much better lights out there that I’d use instead.
Paul C Buff Celestial Tech Specs
This spec table is taken from the official product listing:
Celestial Flash Unit | |
---|---|
Watt seconds | 500 Ws |
Action Mode – Power Variability | 12 f-stops (full to 1/2048 power) |
Color Mode – Power Variability | 12 f-stops (full to 1/2048 power) |
HSS Mode – Power Variability | 12 f-stops (full to 1/2048 power) |
Recycle to Full | 1.5 sec. |
Flash Duration (t.5) – in Action Mode | 1/800 sec. (at full power) | 1/21,400 sec. (at minimum power) |
Flash Duration (t.1) – in Action Mode | 1/340 sec. (at full power) | 1/13,500 sec. (at minimum power) |
Flash Duration (t.5) – in Color Mode | 1/800 sec. (at full power) | 1/10,800 sec. (at minimum power) |
Flash Duration (t.1) – in Color Mode | 1/340 sec. (at full power) | 1/8,200 sec. (at minimum power) |
Power Requirements | 18VDC, 45Wh battery |
Charger Requirements | IN: 100-240-VAC, 50/60Hz, 1A, OUT: 20.5VDC, 2.5A Max |
Internal Receiver Range | 75′ – 200′, depending on orientation |
Sync / Trigger Voltage | Less than 5 volts (safe for use with DSLR cameras) |
Modeling Lamp | 160 W Equivalent Daylight-Balanced |
Modeling Lamp Usage | ~90 mins. at full power on a fully charged battery |
Modeling Lamp Fan Audibility (Full) | No internal fan |
LUX at 6′ with bare bulb | 340lx |
LUX at 6′ with diffusion dome | 200lx |
LUX at 6′ with diffusion dome and 8.5HOR | 500lx |
LUX at 3′ with bare bulb | 1500lx |
LUX at 3′ with diffusion dome | 800lx |
LUX at 3′ with diffusion dome and 8.5HOR | 1800lx |
Flashtube | 10mm single-ring flashtube (daylight-balanced and UV-coated) |
LCD Display | 2.3″ display |
Stand Mount | Fits stands up to 5/8 in. |
Umbrella Mount | Accepts umbrella rods up to 9mm |
Weight | 4.6 lbs. with Battery |
Dimensions | 6.5 in. (height) x 5.25 in. (width) x 8 in. (length) |