PHOTOGRAPHY: In These Tough Economic Times, Invest in...Alien Bees?

I’ve found that people who know anything at all about Paul C. Buff’s Alien Bees strobes either love them or hate them.

Proponents laud their affordability and reliability, Buff’s repair policy, and overall customer service. AB haters, on the other hand, deride everything from the admittedly goofy colors they come in (although you can always buy basic black…), to their “cheap” look and feel (they’re made of Lexan—which is actually bullet-proof glass material—rather than metal), to the quality of the light they produce. At least one naysayer I’ve read on the web goes so far as to call Paul C. Buff himself a con man.

My personal experience with ABs thus far been limited, but positive. I own an ABR800 ring flash that I picked up in great shape and for a great price on Ebay. It’s a bit heavy and the mounting bracket is in all ways a pain the ass, but I love the results I get with it and even at full retail price ($399.95), it’s a great bargain compared to other ring flash options: e.g., it’s about 60% less than Profoto’s Acute 2 version, which, incidentally, you can’t use unless you also have a $1500 pack.

When I decided recently to invest in some studio lighting, I added ABs to a list of possibles that also included monolights and pack-and-head options from Hensel and Elinchrom along with my first choice, the Profoto Acute 2 D4s, which I’ve used on a number of shoots.

Hoping that maybe I’d find the sort of shopportunity I’d be bragging about for the rest of my life, I started watching auctions and tracking strobe prices on eBay. Over the course of six weeks, I checked and searched and searched again. Pickings were pretty slim, it turned out, on the Elinchroms and Hensels that interested me, but a goodly number of souls were off-loading their Profoto or AB gear. 

When I put ABs on my list, I had the notion that maybe I’d pick up a few as a sort of interim solution until I could either save up the cash or liquidate enough extraneous gear to afford the Profotos. I’d found a great deal on my AB ring flash on eBay, I reasoned, so surely I’d have no trouble finding a similar deal on some AB b800s (the 320 WS middle-of-the-range strobes) or b1600s (the most powerful ABs at 640 WS).

This turned out to be wishful thinking. I knew when I started my shopping that used strobes generally hold their value pretty well. What I never expected to find, however, was that, right now, Alien Bees are holding their value EXCEPTIONALLY well—as well as any photo gear I’d ever researched.

Here’s an example: the AlienBees b800 retails direct from Buff for $279.95 + shipping (which varies a bit depending on your location). Over the month and a half used AB b800s advertised in “excellent” to “mint” condition consistently sold in the range of $225-$250, which translates to 80-90% of their original price.

The b1600 strobes performed similarly well, selling for an average price of $300 or 83.3% of their direct-from-Buff price of $359. Love ABs or hate them, those are some impressive numbers.

So why are eBay buyers willing to pay close to retail price for used ABs? Maybe the strong demand is due to the economy forcing more photogs to abandon their dreams of Profoto and other high-end strobes and go with more affordable options. Maybe it’s down to the evangelizing of the large and almost cultishly loyal AB fan base.

Or maybe ABs really are all that.

I’ll be able to let you know soon enough: when a minty b800 had yet to attract an opening bid of $225 just minutes before the auction was to end, I pulled the trigger. After all, if I decide it’s not for me once I’ve put it through the series of one-light tests I have planned, I can always sell it on eBay– and at that price I might even turn a profit.