Is a 60 inch umbrella too big for a battery powered strobe

subseasniper

subseasniper

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Hey all,

I bought a refletive/shoot through umbrella from ebay for my Canon Speedlite 430 EX II.

Unfortunately, I bought a 60 inch umbrella instead of a 40 inch. The question is, is this too big for my Speedlite or will it still give me useable light?

Cheers.
 
MIght be alright. You'll be lucky to fill the whole area, my flashes at 20mm fill a 40" perfectly so you might have some unused surface area but you'll still get the maximum area out of the flash. Better than not being big enough I reckon, only time and testing will tell.

You might find though that if you can't use the full area of the umbrella the light might not diffuse as much as it would in a smaller umbrella. Depends on the curvature.
 
Cheers Kev, I was hoping you would reply to this. I remember reading your advice RE buying a 40" umbrella which was why I wanted go for that.

From what you say I think I should be safe enough with the 60", I am hoping to buy an Interfit portable studio strobe outfit sometime soon anyway so I can use it with that as well. Cheers.
 
subseasniper said:
Cheers Kev, I was hoping you would reply to this. I remember reading your advice RE buying a 40" umbrella which was why I wanted go for that.

From what you say I think I should be safe enough with the 60", I am hoping to buy an Interfit portable studio strobe outfit sometime soon anyway so I can use it with that as well. Cheers.
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Should be fine, just make sure you use a wide zoom. Keep it nice and close and you should get enough.

I use a 60" with SB-900, but will also be using it with SB-600, which is close to the 430 I think
 
A 60 should be fine, it may just affect how high you can place your brolly ***'.
 
Have a look at the strobist blog, this was covered in their most recent post...
 
Cheers, I saw that earlier today. As if by magic Mr Strobist comes across yet again.
 
Kirk Tuck's book Minimalist Lighting has a pic on p. 22 of an SB-800 illuminating a 60" shoot through umbrella plus the resulting image - looks :thumbs: to me.

I hope so anyway as I have two of them that I haven't had a chance to try yet :lol:
 
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