I am looking for a beauty light for quick portraits of 1, 2, or on rare occasions up to 5 people. Mostly I am looking for a 1/2 to 1/4 length portrait light for a variety of portraits on location.
I once had a huge softbox (I think it was 36"x48") but that threw light everywhere and didn't work in some small places I had to shoot in.
So what do you use for location work: The 69", 39", 27.5"?
Also, can a SB-900 Nikon strobe work with any of these Octas or are they too big? I also have a Dynalite UNI-400 if that can work. Thanks.
By on-location do you still mean inside? Look at ones that can be gridded. I would also seriously look at Paul Buff's extreme silver PLMs, I have the 64" and the light is very well controlled like a beam. Don't let the 'extreme' tag put you off for portraits.
I find that I use the 27.5" Baby Deep Octa the most lately. Very nice light, flexible in terms of how it can be configured with either deflectors or diffusers. Spill is fairly well controlled when just using the inner diffuser. It can be soft if you work it in close for a tighter headshot, or it can be punchy when pulled back a bit. Overall quite small/light and portable.
I also have and like the 39" DO, but it's just a bit bigger and gets used less. It would be better for large groups of 5, but for that I usually reach for the regular 53" Octa or a larger modifier.
I haven't used any of these with speedlights. I think that Kacey Enterprises makes an adapter to use Elinchrom boxes with speedlights. I don't think you can mount your Dynalites on them, since the speedring on a Rotalux cannot be swapped out without doing your own machining work.
