Advice for choosing 7ft parabolic style umbrella

[Tony101]

Hello,

I'm thinking about buying one of these giant parabolic style umbrellas.

I'm still trying to figure out which will be the most useful to me - silver or white shoot-through. I'm thinking the most common function, for me, is as a large fill light so the white shoot-through looks favourite at the mo', but the silver could prove interesting for an upcoming shoot - decisions, decisions.

Anyhow, that's not my question (get to the point Tony - I can sense people falling face down into comas at their keyboards!)....
....has anyone compared these brollies from different manufacturers?
Are any brands of obviously better build quality? (I shoot on location, not cosseted up in a studio.)
Are any brands more preferable, for whatever reason, than others?

Seeing as I'm having difficulty deciding which style to get, I'm considering:
- Lastolite's Mega Umbrella kit which gives both silver and shoot-through for £150. Or a...
- Westcott 7ft white parabolic (as a do-it-all) for £110, or maybe the silver version which could be combined with their diffusion panel for an additional £35, to create a poor man's Octabank.

However, these may all originate from the same Chinese factory, so I looked at Lencarta's website, but sadly there's literally no information other than the price of £60.

Many thanks if you made it this far into my diatribe, and thanks in advance for any advice, thoughts or observations you may have.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[Tony101]

First and last bump, just in case someone can help me.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[cosmix3]

Not sure if this is of help, but I have the Westcott white reflective and love it, gives a great soft light and I have shot many a time with just that one light, I have also used the 7ft silver reflective from Viewfinder, but prefer the white over it, not used the shoot through so not sure what that is like, for build quality the Westcott cant be faulted, better than the Viewfinder to be honest.