Umbrella softboxes (again)

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vaizki

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Jukka
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Maybe discussed to death, but here goes.. I don't have a dedicated space to keep my dinky D-lites and the basic 60x60 softboxes are a pain to disassemble and assemble. I also have a Metz AF-1 58 and a YN-560 to add on as needed.

Mostly shoot portraits and "products" such as my watch collection etc, the wife keeps a food blog and would like a quick setup if she does something extra nice.

So I was thinking of getting the 110cm "brollyboxes", namely 3 of them, 2 of the shoot-through ones that you can get really close and 1 of the reflective umbrellas with a diffuser on the umbrella opening. Oh and needs to have a 7mm shaft for the Elin..

I'm assuming that these will outperform the basic 60x60 portalite softboxes in terms of light softness and catchlights? I know I may lose up to a stop of light but currently that doesn't seem to be a problem (and I'm thinking of splurging on a 500/500 BXRi set)

The brollyboxes are also dirt cheap, but what's my "next step up" towards a collapsible octa type solution?
 
You'll struggle to find many sellers with 7mm ones, the only ones I've come across have been 8mm...
 
Argh! Now that you're there, do you have the 8mm ones in stock then? Couldn't seem them in your thread.. I can fit 8mm ones to the "extra umbrella" holder on these lights, just the hole straight through the unit is 7mm.
 
Thanks (again!) Richard, that looks pretty good. However I was thinking that the "other way around" with a translucent dome and shoot through would be better for portraits as it allows me to place it very close to the subject at low power and thus avoid light spill onto the background..

My head says that if using this reflecting model, I have to keep the diffusion surface much further away (don't want the shaft up the models nose), so the background would have to be significantly further back to avoid light spill.

I should probably get one of these for fill and maybe a folding octa for the close-up light? Though I guess those are a bit pain to set up as well..

Am I lost? Guide me to the light! :D
 
You seem to know what you're doing, so I'll just offer some comments.

I don't personally care for those shoot through brollybox things because they spread the light everywhere from the domed front, over about 180 degrees. Tons of spill, up/down and left/right, and in a normal room with a typical white ceiling you can't really stop it.

I would also say that you can use that Lastolite UB very close, like under one foot, and not get any shadowing from the flash head. And I mean none. If the shaft is sticking up the model's nose, cut it off (either the nose or the shaft, same difference). You do however get the head reflected very clearly in the eyes with portraits, but the nature of that is very easy to clone out in PP if it troubles you.

I also have a 70cm square Rotalux softbox which is also extremely easy to put up and down - as you would flippin well hope for the price. If you can stretch to one of those, that's the answer. I keep meaning to get the sublime 135cm Rotalux Octa but always seem to have something better to spend the money on, mainly it has to be said because I already get such good results from what I've already got.
 
Yes the rotalux softboxes look very nice, I had to go to YouTube to find out how they're put together though. And Elinchrome's Octabox vs Octabank vs Octa vs Rotalux.. argh it's a bit confusing tbh.

I'd think that a 70cm softbox would be a bit small for a lot of shots?
 
70cm is bigger than you might think - it's a 100cm Quadra! ;) I like it for tabletop and products etc, as the shape is just better for that and the size is plenty big enough. You can also get grids and hoods for it, and the Elinchrom deflector caps are good to turn any of their softboxes into a kind of beauty dish (with the diffusers removed).

It depends what you're doing, and since I seem to mainly shoot portraits with one or two people, a 100cm SB is usually ok. I'd like something bigger, but if I'm honest, when I look at the results I'm getting, it gets hard to justify. And a 135 Octa is a pretty damn big thing to put up in somebody's front room. I'll get one soon I expect, the light is wonderful :)

Elinchrom also do a deep 100cm Octa. If you want maximum control, one of those with a hood is as good as it gets really :thumbs:
 
I don't get how a 70cm square rotalux softbox is the same as a 100cm Quadra? :thinking:

The confusing thing is, people use "Octa" to refer to the Octa Softboxes as well as the Octa Lightbanks (where the head is inside the massive satellite dish looking thing). I guess I should know by now from the size what people mean ;)

And yes, looking at the youtube videos about the rotalux stuff, it's pretty convincing with the double diffusion cloths and the centrally mounted reflectors etc to add to it. I'm sure it won't be exactly the same as a beauty dish but it's infinitely more easily thrown into a cabinet :lol:

I think I'm going to skip the cheap ebay stuff and go with these, just need to ooh and aah about the sizes.. And the deep octa looks nice with a parabolic shape, and I hear there's a 70cm one out now as well.

The 197cm octa lightbank.. that thing is HUGE and LOVELY :love: Looked pretty cool as a blown out background too. I guess it has the same

Thanks again, much appreciated.
 
vaizki said:
I don't get how a 70cm square rotalux softbox is the same as a 100cm Quadra? :thinking:

The confusing thing is, people use "Octa" to refer to the Octa Softboxes as well as the Octa Lightbanks (where the head is inside the massive satellite dish looking thing). I guess I should know by now from the size what people mean ;)

And yes, looking at the youtube videos about the rotalux stuff, it's pretty convincing with the double diffusion cloths and the centrally mounted reflectors etc to add to it. I'm sure it won't be exactly the same as a beauty dish but it's infinitely more easily thrown into a cabinet :lol:

I think I'm going to skip the cheap ebay stuff and go with these, just need to ooh and aah about the sizes.. And the deep octa looks nice with a parabolic shape, and I hear there's a 70cm one out now as well.

The 197cm octa lightbank.. that thing is HUGE and LOVELY :love: Looked pretty cool as a blown out background too. I guess it has the same

Thanks again, much appreciated.
Click to expand...

70x70 is 100 corner to corner ;)

For me, the size I use is really dictated by the space I have available. Given enough room, I'd get the biggest I could. I recently saw a guy using two 197 octas, on location :eek: It was an indoor location though, McLaren HQ actually, shooting Lewis' F1 championship winning car (that was a good day out :) ).
 
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