ngray
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Just got my two today, large and small silver, with the diffuser fabric. Just fired off a few for grins, I'll really work the smaller one out on location tomorrow. Note that I'm an amateur, so take all this with a grain of salt. Quick takes:
The material is substantial, and the thing overall seems pretty durable, with poly-something ribs, and steel tips. The fabric appears two be a black and silver material bonded together.
Comes with a nice sleeve for carrying the thing around in.
Only negatives so far are:
The umbrella shaft pokes out about a foot past the back of my ab800, and while I used my softbox more than umbrellas, having little experience with umbrellas (and none at all with parabolics), it took some 'rembembering' to stay out of the way of the shaft, when it was close up.
The diffusion material seems to hang pretty loosely on the rib tips. The two points closest to the ground fall off, with no negative detriment to utility, but I wonder how it'll do outside, with a little breeze. I'll reserve judgement on this once the whole thing 'loosens up', which I would think would stretch the umbrella material out enough to hold more tension in the diffusion material.
I understand that the plm reflector (not yet available, in a few weeks I was told) will restrict the side spill. I didn't think that would be important, but I have some work ahead of me figuring out how to point this so that I don't get a lot of light coming off the environment due to this. It was an issue for my tests, but this is not a new issue in lighting, and I'm sure it's manageable, but I'll be getting the PLM reflector just the same.
Other than those two observations, I'm very pleased. It's the largest modifier I've ever worked with, and I have many nights ahead of me getting a feel for what it can do. I did to a full-on shot of the thing firing, and the pattern does seem quite even, not weighting to the edges or inside, but very even, at least so far as I can see. Only thing I tried that really takes advantage of it's size is a simulated interior window, flooding lateral light in. It was really amazing to get shots that look like a dead ringer for natural indoor light, but at ISO100 f/8. Next task will be some full-lengths.
This thing is an outrageous value, and I can't see why I'll hold onto my old 24x36 softbox. Every AB user should have 1 (or more!) of the things.
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