EP166 Interview With Mark & Simon From Elinchrom UK

I sit down with Mark Cheatham and Simon Burfoot from Elinchrom UK to talk about the two words that matter most when you work with light: accuracy and consistency. We dig into flash vs. continuous, shaping light (not just adding it), why reliable gear shortens your workflow, and Elinchrom’s new LED 100 C—including evenly filling big softboxes and that handy internal battery. We also wander into AI: threats, tools, and why authenticity still carries the highest value.

 

Links:

• 
  

  Elinchrom UK store/info: https://elinchrom.co.uk/

  
  


• 
  

  LED 100 C product page: https://elinchrom.co.uk/elinchrom-led-100-c

  
  


• 
  

  Rotalux Deep Octa / strips: https://elinchrom.co.uk/elinchrom-rotalux-deep-octabox-100cm-softbox/

  
  


• 
  

  My workshop dates: https://masteringportraitphotography.com/workshops-and-mentoring/

  
  

Transcript:

Paul: as quite a lot of, you know, I've had a love affair with Elinchrom Lighting for the past 20 something years. In fact, I'm sitting with one of the original secondhand lights I bought from the Flash Center 21 years ago in London.

And on top of that, you couldn't ask for a nicer set of guys in the UK to deal with. So I'm sitting here about to talk to Simon and Mark from Elinchrom uk.

I'm Paul and this is the Mastering Portrait Photography podcast.

Paul: So before we get any further, tell me a little bit about who you are, each of you and the team from Elinchrom UK

Mark: After you, Simon.

Simon: Thank you very much, mark.

Mark: That's fine.

Simon: I'm, Simon Burfoot. I have, been in the industry now for longer than I care to think.

35 years almost to the, to the day.

Always been in the industry even before I left school because my father was a photographer and a lighting tutor, working for various manufacturers I was always into photography, and when he started the whole lighting journey. I got on it with him, and was learning from a very young age.

Did my first wedding at 16 years old. Had a Saturday job which turned into a full-time job in a retail camera shop. By the time I was 18, I was managing my own camera shop, in a little town in the Cotswolds called Cirencester. My dad always told me that to be a photographic rep in the industry, you needed to see it from all angles, to get the experience.

So I ended up, working in retail, moving over to a framing company. Finishing off in a prolab, hand printing, wedding photographers pictures, processing E6 and C41, hand correcting big prints for framing for, for customers, which was really interesting and I really enjoyed it. And then ended up working for a company called Leeds Photo Visual, I was a Southwest sales guy for them.

Then I moved to KJP before it became, what we know now as Wex, and got all of the customers back that I'd stolen for them for Leeds. And then really sort of started my career progressing through, and then started to work with Elinchrom, on the lighting side. Used Elinchrom way before I started working with them.

I like you a bit of a love affair. I'd used lots of different lights and, just loved the quality of the light that the Elinchrom system produced. And that's down to a number of factors that I could bore you with, but it's the quality of the gear, the consistency in terms of color, and exposure.

Shooting film was very important to have that consistency because we didn't have Photoshop to help us out afterwards. It was a learning journey, but I, I hit my goal after being a wedding photographer and a portrait photographer in my spare time, working towards getting out on the road, meeting people and being involved in the industry, which I love.

And I think it's something that I'm scared of leaving 'cause I dunno anything else. It's a wonderful industry. It has its quirks, its, downfalls at points, but actually it's a really good group of people and everyone kind of, gets on and we all love working with each other.

So we're friends rather than colleagues.

Paul: I hesitate to ask, given the length of that answer, to cut

Simon: You did ask.

Mark: I know.

Paul: a short story

Mark: was wondering if I was gonna get a go.

Paul: I was waiting to get to end into the podcast and I was about to sign off.

Mark: So, hi Mark Cheatham, sales director for Elinchrom uk this is where it gets a little bit scary because me and Simon have probably known each other for 10 years, yet our journeys in the industry are remarkably similar.

I went to college, did photography, left college, went to work at commercial photographers and hand printers. I was a hand printer, mainly black and white, anything from six by four to eight foot by four foot panels, which are horrible when you're deving in a dish. But we did it.

Paul: To the generation now, deving in a dish doesn't mean anything.

Simon: No, it doesn't.

Mark: And, and when you're doing a eight foot by four foot print and you've got it, you're wearing most of the chemistry. You went home stinking every night. I was working in retail. As a Saturday lad and then got promoted from the Saturday lad to the manager and went to run a camera shop in a little town in the Lake District called Kendall.

I stayed there for nine years. I left there,

went on the road working for a brand called Olympus, where I did 10 years, I moved to Pentax, which became Rico Pentax. I did 10 years there. I've been in the industry all my life. Like Simon, I love the industry.

I did go out the industry for 18 months where I went into the wonderful world of high end commercial vr, selling to blue light military, that sort of thing. And then came back. One of the, original members of Elinchrom uk. I don't do as much photography as Simon I take photos every day, probably too many looking at my Apple storage. I do shoot and I like shooting now and again, but I'm not a constant shooter like you guys i'm not a professional shooter, but when you spent 30 odd years in the industry, and part of that, I basically run the, the medium format business for Pentax. So 645D, 645Z.

Yeah, it was a great time. I love the industry and, everything about it. So, yeah, that's it

Paul: Obviously both of you at some point put your heads together and decided Elinchrom UK was the future. What triggered that and

why do you think gimme your sales pitch for Elinchrom for a moment and then we can discuss the various merits.

Simon: The sales pitch for Elinchrom is fairly straightforward. It's a nice, affordable system that does exactly what most photographers would like. We sell a lot of our modifiers, so soft boxes and things like that to other users, of Prophoto, Broncolor. Anybody else? Because actually the quality of the light that comes out the front of our diffusion material and our specular surfaces on the soft boxes is, is a lot, lot more superior than, than most.

A lot more superior. A lot more

Mark: A lot more superior.

Paul: more superior.

Simon: I'm trying to

Paul: Superior.

Simon: It's superior. And I think Paul, you'll agree,

Paul: it's a lot more,

Simon: You've used different manufacturers over the years and, I think the quality of light speaks for itself.

As a photographer I want consistency. Beautiful light and the effects that the Elinchrom system gives me, I've tried other soft boxes. If you want a big contrasty, not so kind light, then use a cheaper soft box.

If I've got a big tattoo guy full of piercings you're gonna put some contrasty light to create some ambience. Maybe the system for that isn't good enough, but for your standard portrait photographer in a studio, I don't think you can beat the light.

Mark: I think the two key words for Elinchrom products are accuracy and consistency. And that's what, as a portrait photographer, you should be striving for, you don't want your equipment to lengthen your workflow or make your job harder in post-production.

If you're using Elinchrom lights with Elinchrom soft boxes or Elinchrom modifiers, you know that you're gonna get accuracy and consistency. Which generally makes your job easier.

Paul: I think there's a bit that neither of you, I don't think you've quite covered, and it's the bit of the puzzle that makes you want to use whatever is the tool of your trade.

I mean, I worked with musicians, I grew up around orchestras. Watching people who utterly adore the instrument that's in their hand. It makes 'em wanna play it. If you own the instrument that you love to play, whether it's a drum kit a trumpet a violin or a piano, you will play it and get the very best out of your talent with it.

It's just a joy to pick it up and use it for all the little tiny things I think it's the bit you've missed in your descriptions of it is the utter passion that people that use it have for it.

Mark: I think one of the things I learned from my time in retail, which was obviously going back, a long way, even before digital cameras One of the things I learned from retail, I was in retail long before digital cameras, retail was a busier time.

People would come and genuinely ask for advice. So yes, someone would come in and what's the best camera for this? Or what's the best camera for that? Honestly there is still no answer to that. All the kit was good then all the kit is good now. You might get four or five different SLRs out.

And the one they'd pick at the end was