Umbrella choice.

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I know there are several options for umbrella's to be used with flashguns, shoot-through, silver, and gold reflective.

Question is, is there any real difference between reflective and shoot through? I know you lose light power through a shoot-through but do you get similar light coverage.

Also, am I right in thinking the gold reflective is better suited for portraits to help with skin tones?

Thanks
 
Dal said:
I know there are several options for umbrella's to be used with flashguns, shoot-through, silver, and gold reflective.

Question is, is there any real difference between reflective and shoot through? I know you lose light power through a shoot-through but do you get similar light coverage.

Also, am I right in thinking the gold reflective is better suited for portraits to help with skin tones?

Thanks
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Reflective is a bit more contrasty and shoot through is a bit softer like a softbox. Shoot through contains light a bit more, and you can position your light source closer to your subject with a shoot through to get softer shadows.

You loose a bit of light as it goes through the material, but it doesn't have to travel away from and then back to subject so you pick up a bit there.
 
The big difference with shoot-throughs is you can use them closer so they're very soft, but you get tons of light spilling either side and half of it bounces straight out of the back. That makes them very uncontrolled but in a normal room all that light bouncing around acts like a kind of auto-fill-in which is sometimes helpful. But not if you want a black background!

I like plain old white umbrellas. They so cheap and easy to use, even big ones, the light is great, and they're reasonably controlled. The light from silver is quite a lot harder, because more of the light is concentrated in the middle and less is diffused out to the edges.

IMHO gold is hideous and should be banned :gag:
 
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HoppyUK said:
The big difference with shoot-throughs is you can use them closer so they're very soft, but you get tons of light spilling either side and half of it bounces straight out of the back. That makes them very uncontrolled but in a normal room all that light bouncing around acts like a kind of auto-fill-in which is sometimes helpful. But not if you want a black background!

I like plain old white umbrellas. They so cheap and easy to use, even big ones, the light is great, and they're reasonably controlled. The light from silver is quite a lot harder, because more of the light is concentrated in the middle and less is diffused out to the edges.

IMHO gold is hideous and should be banned :gag:
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Just been thinking about this. When you say 'Plain old white umbrella's'. Do you mean the shoot through or reflective but white reflective? Links to where you buy yours would help :).
 
Dal said:
Just been thinking about this. When you say 'Plain old white umbrella's'. Do you mean the shoot through or reflective but white reflective? Links to where you buy yours would help :).
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I mean white reflective. I've got a couple of more expensive Elinchrom ones made of double-skinned vinyl but only because I needed their annoyingly smaller 7mm shaft size. It's actually unnecessarily heavy.

A brolly is a brolly as far as I'm concerned. Last one I bought was a Kood from Premier-Ink because it was cheap. It's just fine, but a small silver one - presumably the white ones are just as good.

I also like the Lastolite Umbrella Boxes - still quite cheap and easy to use, and work pretty much like a softbox in that it can go close. Be careful not to take your model's eye out with the shaft :D
 
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HoppyUK said:
I mean white reflective. I've got a couple of more expensive Elinchrom ones made of double-skinned vinyl but only because I needed their annoyingly smaller 7mm shaft size. It's actually unnecessarily heavy.

A brolly is a brolly as far as I'm concerned. Last one I bought was a Kood from Premier-Ink because it was cheap. It's just fine, but a small silver one - presumably the white ones are just as good.

I also like the Lastolite Umbrella Boxes - still quite cheap and easy to use, and work pretty much like a softbox in that it can go close. Be careful not to take your model's eye out with the shaft :D
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Thanks Hoppy.

I thought I'd have a look at the Lastolite stuff and I was chuffed to see all the video's on there. I must of watched about 3 hours worth now to decide what to get lol. Gonna stick with a couple of cheap brollies for the moment though :).

Andreass said:
I have both type of umbrellas, somewhere outside I use some unnamed brend - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/33-PRO-STUDIO...graphy_StudioEquipment_RL&hash=item1c0c4adc62

But inside prefer to use big Lastolite umbrella.

I not use any-more silver umbrella, because light is to sharp, white umbrella makes better light IMHO :)

The shoot through Umbrella use only if need to take some close up.
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Thanks for that Andreass. Thats a nice price on those brollies. I'll order a few of those up I think.
 
umbrellas is really cheap, You can try all types and then decide what is better for You.
I not really believe in brands for cheap things, so try to buy in ebay some different types of umbrellas. I think that is good way, because then You will have experience with that.
 
Andreass said:
umbrellas is really cheap, You can try all types and then decide what is better for You.
I not really believe in brands for cheap things, so try to buy in ebay some different types of umbrellas. I think that is good way, because then You will have experience with that.
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I do try to avoid ebay lately, 1 for the extortionate fee's and also I feel the proper companies rather than copycat companies deserve my money.

I bought that one from warehouseexpress and it's brilliant.

Here's the first trial with it :).

5727777702_9d007fd31f_b.jpg
 
Nice! :)

I would pull the light more above and make sure there's a catchlight sparkle in the eyes. I'd crop a lot tighter too, but that's cool :thumbs:
 
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