snowsphere
Ian K TindaleI did things today after all
I took all of my studio lighting gear down from the attic and tried a straightforward portrait/full length test shoot to see if the lights still work and which would be best to use, etc
The soft boxes, I have three of them (Elincrom Portalites), I didn’t even open any of them, I immediately remembered what an utter faff they are to set up and then take down – why did I buy them and keep buying more of them
Especially as I have a pair of much better, much easier to use Lastolite Brollyboxes (basically like a brolly but rubber outside reflective inside, with an attached softbox-like screening which you zip up around the spill reflector of a studio flash)
I also have lots of Elincrom light stands, which are nice, they came with D-Lite sets past and present, I ended up keeping the stands as you can’t have too many lighting stands
However, in keeping with having too many lighting stands, I also have a pair of Calumet Ultra Compact Stands, which are the equivalent of the Manfrotto 001b stand, same thing, and I rather quite like those because the legs can lie flat on the ground alleviating people tripping over the light stand sending the light crashing to the ground
So first I tried a brollybox on a flash on one of those light stands
The first flash I set up was my Elincrom BX250Ri which proceeded to fall apart in several ways, I didn’t even get to power it up – I shoved the brollybox stem into the hole, which wasn’t even aligned properly – I should point out that as I have Elincrom gear, I was lucky to find the Lastolite brollyboxes in the elincrom size shaft which is smaller than standard – still, the BX250 essentially fell apart and involved taking the modelling light out, and the flash tube, unscrewing the reflective face, taking the locking ring out, then sorting out the tube and re screwing it all back – only to find later there’s a chrome clip like bit of metal that fell out and I have to find where it should’ve gone – later
So I abandoned the BX250Ri, another reason is the skyport transmitter (the only skyport light I have was that BX) which remote triggers the lights has a dead coin cell bigger than a 2032, I don’t have a spare, can’t be arsed finding and or spending the money on one – so, no radio trigger, revert to the way I’m used to – a basic PC sync lead plugged from the camera flash socket to the studio flash sync in, optically slaving the other one
I put the brolly box on one of the two D-Lite 4s (didn’t use the other), used a D-Lite 2 for a silver bounce brolly, and the Nikon Z30 on timer on Manfrotto 190 tripod with me as test subject (Nikkor 12-28mm lens – although I could’ve used the 16-50mm lens)
Anyway, I’ve winnowed down the lighting gear I’ll use by half, now
#photography #phootgraphs #phoots #Elincrom #studioFlash #studioLighting #Nikon #Z30 #test #selfPortrait
I took all of my studio lighting gear down from the attic and tried a straightforward portrait/full length test shoot to see if the lights still work and which would be best to use, etc
The soft boxes, I have three of them (Elincrom Portalites), I didn’t even open any of them, I immediately remembered what an utter faff they are to set up and then take down – why did I buy them and keep buying more of them
Especially as I have a pair of much better, much easier to use Lastolite Brollyboxes (basically like a brolly but rubber outside reflective inside, with an attached softbox-like screening which you zip up around the spill reflector of a studio flash)
I also have lots of Elincrom light stands, which are nice, they came with D-Lite sets past and present, I ended up keeping the stands as you can’t have too many lighting stands
However, in keeping with having too many lighting stands, I also have a pair of Calumet Ultra Compact Stands, which are the equivalent of the Manfrotto 001b stand, same thing, and I rather quite like those because the legs can lie flat on the ground alleviating people tripping over the light stand sending the light crashing to the ground
So first I tried a brollybox on a flash on one of those light stands
The first flash I set up was my Elincrom BX250Ri which proceeded to fall apart in several ways, I didn’t even get to power it up – I shoved the brollybox stem into the hole, which wasn’t even aligned properly – I should point out that as I have Elincrom gear, I was lucky to find the Lastolite brollyboxes in the elincrom size shaft which is smaller than standard – still, the BX250 essentially fell apart and involved taking the modelling light out, and the flash tube, unscrewing the reflective face, taking the locking ring out, then sorting out the tube and re screwing it all back – only to find later there’s a chrome clip like bit of metal that fell out and I have to find where it should’ve gone – later
So I abandoned the BX250Ri, another reason is the skyport transmitter (the only skyport light I have was that BX) which remote triggers the lights has a dead coin cell bigger than a 2032, I don’t have a spare, can’t be arsed finding and or spending the money on one – so, no radio trigger, revert to the way I’m used to – a basic PC sync lead plugged from the camera flash socket to the studio flash sync in, optically slaving the other one
I put the brolly box on one of the two D-Lite 4s (didn’t use the other), used a D-Lite 2 for a silver bounce brolly, and the Nikon Z30 on timer on Manfrotto 190 tripod with me as test subject (Nikkor 12-28mm lens – although I could’ve used the 16-50mm lens)
Anyway, I’ve winnowed down the lighting gear I’ll use by half, now
#photography #phootgraphs #phoots #Elincrom #studioFlash #studioLighting #Nikon #Z30 #test #selfPortrait
