Lessons

Lesson Info

Speedlight Diffusers and Modifiers Continued

This is if you're going about one thing by the bounce this is the one that if you're going to buy anything I say by this and then they also have a bunch of little starter kits um they're nice that just have the bounce and so like that one kids too much for you they have a little starter kits which I liked too, so if you're going I'm lost already confused on all these products you could get one of these has just got a little bounce and a jail kit, which I think is like the foundation of their products that you need to get through any any event all right moving on to this new company um if you've ever watched kickstarter online where these companies have these great ideas and they they make together this little video but you know, if if you're not in business, this is, um just having a mold just to make a plastic mould or silicon mould cost you five to ten thousand dollars it's not cheap so all these people that are brandon to have amazing ideas but they don't have the funding to get it ...

done kickstart allows them to do it and this was a company I saw kick start and they had a video and it was really well made and I really really liked it and I was really excited because I'm such a flash junkie and and so when it came out, I gave him money, and I got some of this product, and it's it's revolutionized this kind of violence. That revolution is, but it's changed the way flash modifiers work, because up to this point, everything has been velcro for the most part. And then the next one I'm going to show you is velcro as well. But I love this one because this one works off a magnet magnets, it's a whole different concept, and it's a silicone that doesn't lose its shape or size. And so we're going to talk about this it first, so basically, what you would do is that I'm gonna actually do it on this flash. So shows you it's a lot easier to show. It can be a little tough trying to put this on if you're kind of find it, but what I found the best way is just to put one side on and then just stretch and it just goes right on very easy, and then once you get it on, you can just kind of slide it down because, it's, what I like about this is it is made for the seven hundred, eight hundred to seven hundred, nine hundred siri's nikon, or all that cannon's so it's one mole that fits any flash and so for you guys out there like you have the older can I mean icons and the new and icons you have some older cannons and the new cannon on the newer cannons this will all fit and so that's basically you put it on it's good to go and you basically khun if I put it on correctly thrown backwards is I'm talking my stupid idiot this so have it on and then all the attachments and at this point there they have a few that I love and I love the concept behind it is magnetic so we have a grid try to put on one way that's gonna work because it's it's fighting you turn over it just sticks right? It literally just sticks right on and I really like this and what's nice about it is there grids which I this is the nerdiness and me they're grids are all the exact same if you don't know what a great is a honey comb basically it basically knocks out light so if I'm in a tight quarters which lots of times and weddings you're going to be and you need to knock out light this knocks out the light and what's nice about it they're all the same so when you add them it just continually knocks that light and you can add ten of these if you wanted to paul magnetic put it this way so we can see the honey comb moving back and forth and so I really really, really really really like this product because of the simplicity of it the other thing that I like and you can tell this gentleman is a photographer that designed this the other thing that I like is the jail kit that comes with it for several reasons one you can use it with your grids if you wanted to so I can actually put the jail right on top but what I like the most about it is a lot of what we just talked about first of all they have all your basic jails and this is a neutral density jail remember we talked about yesterday at the neutral density will take away light so again he understands that sometimes you need to remove light in a small area with these jails are almost indestructible and I love that they won't melt their sturdy they're neat and in the holder itself will actually hold up to three jails so you can mix and match our colors you commit you max your tones for skin tones whatever else you want so you if you don't want the red and blue and you want purple put the red and blue together kind of get a purple tone so it's really really really well thought out really well thought out and so they just slotted in there all silicon based molds and so they won't really go anywhere. The other thing that I like is this receive you all know what this is? You put this band here aiming device no at first I didn't know what it was either so I'm not going back looking for a hand you know what it is what you can put your radio transmission device right in here and it'll hold it this one's new so it's tight you khun stretch that right over slide your radio popper right in there and it will hold it on there and you can if you have a sink orders whatever it'll plug right in and now that's not going anywhere that's what I like about this guy it's a well thought out as a photographer little things like this I actually I hope they come out with and I just pulled it off I hope they actually come out with one for the alien bees or the strobes like a bigger band of this that would actually go around maestro my studio strobes just the same concept because all my radio poppers hang off my stroke just with the same cord and so to me this is this is one of those things that was like why didn't I think of this you know but this cost money I mean this is this this and so but this is such a great, simple, simple tool and so I really really like this so if you're a pure stroh vis you don't like tio you don't like any of that stuff which is perfectly okay and you want your ready papa your pockets to hang off your flash get tired of it the cord falls it basically breaks your connector whatever else that's an easy solution with that silicon band around your flash uh I would think I might be concerned about heat buildup that it's really there's really not a lot of heat so you put around isn't really gonna matter in silicon is actually a pretty good it absorbs that it won't hurt it and that's another thing I like about it because we've tested it I've tested putting even tape around my my light source maestros where there is the fan and they didn't it didn't bother also up to this point I've never had a problem with it and we live like that we've already hitting the nineties this year back where we live so it's it gets pretty hot and sticky is I told you in the break it's the armpit of the gulf coast it's always hot, ugly and sticky so we're selling it I know I'm selling it everybody wants to move in with jackson texas now it really is there's great people it's like any other place everybody has its pros and cons but what I love about my community of people and you know, we have a huge volume business which we also have a creative live on boyle but businesses community if you don't, especially where people service and if you don't have if you don't have friends, if you're not able to deal with your clients, if you look at my my instagram and twitter is try coast and my wife's a strike oh, seniors and we put our lives on that in many ways, and I know a lot of people don't like that, um we're not putting anything dirty or were always clean we're always professional what we do more than just our clients, we share us like, last night way have my daughter here and we went to go eat and, you know, she took a picture of me with dungeness crab on my head, and I put that on there and had tons of clients say they like the photo and I think that's part of a business but it's also what we enjoy and so that's why I like my my community no, it is not pretty when you come to seattle and you see fugit san, you have wells going by and you have great seafood yeah, you're looking at a little aaron you're like, yeah, it's not great, but no it's is good people, I really enjoy it's really a great great new product I love I love that there are modern they got started on kickstarter I think that's just really really cool because there's that's the problem with today is on ly people that have money make money and this guy's a perfect example of the if you have a good product people were going to come cheer for you they're gonna help you out because he got tons of money on yes do they have a soft box? They do not have any other products of this time but they're coming out with some I talked to the owner asking him if I could display it here on creative lives before and the inventor because you know it's it's hit I don't use it but I want to make sure it's still right and he didn't tell me anything because I think it's still under you know super secret stuff but knowing what he's got to come out with and the way that it's design because it is top notch I mean you you can run over this with a car because it's just silicon and unearth matter it's just not going anywhere knowing the way he designed this and the thought pressing his head I can't I can't wait to see what else they're going to come out with so I imagine it's going to be some good stuff so this is one that I've recently started to look and kind of experiment with and then we're going to give it some shooting, but I want to kind of go over it all I'll just hold this up it's a rogue photographic is on and a lot of people having the light benders is there a big one and it has there's some really cool factor so it's kind of in between the looming quest and it has some modern aspects to it let me start off something a little more simplistic so you basically have it's velcro based again um and so but it also has a little snaps and so you basically would this is like a little bounce so you put that around and just has a little local card and so this is a little bounce car that you could put on very simple again I like it because it's flat it's portable it's not going to really tear up it's very easy to work with you khun been in different directions it's got a sturdy backbone in a sense so you can kind of bend it around if you need to you want a little curvature so that's kind of nice but again it's velcro base very much just like the loom request this is one it's a little bit bigger and if you notice it has the two the two blue parts that's the part that kind of bends and so this is kind of where they got their name again so works the sacks same way put it on this you can actually bend around even convey ll crow it if you wanted to snoot different ways so it's it's kind of ah niu been a new twist to the old bounce card in a sense so very very simplistic holds up pretty well stick nylon pretty nice very simple to do and then you have well we'll show that last then you have this which is kind of the same concept looks the same way but this is actually little soft box and so it actually has a little material on the inside so you literally could mount this kind of the same way but now put your flash on the inside of it and so you're you're soft box what does it look like a soft box this comes around snaps and there's a little soft bark for you so this is what I was talking about with the question earlier to me this works the exact same way as the hard plastic ones in defusing the light spread in the light but without having the portable aspect issues of having something that takes up another linz or another flash space in my camera back and again all this was literally laying right on top of my bag where a lot of people like to put their laptop on top inside that I literally packed all my gear, put all this here and just zipped it up so I can carry four, five, six different types of light if users and it's very light, very portable. So it again, you can kind of be in this if you wanted to, you could open it up top if you wanted to and just kind of having a huge diffuser where it's not bouncing around so there's, lots of little portable aspects and little different configurations that you can do with this product and then last but not least from this, and we're gonna get some shooting is they have a jail kid as well, circle and and comb. So basically, this has just little little bands that come off, and then this is pulls off. And so that's, a first of all that's, just your honey comb like we showed earlier, and this one though they have two different styles, is the other one was all the same, which I'm not. I'm being honest, I'm not making money off anyone. I like this design better where it's the same honeycomb. And I just stacked on top because again that's less mathematics that I need to worry about I know it's the same and it would be more like I just need to hunting combs I need three hundred comes and just need one and I could just stack them to get the life that I want once I do my testing know how wide the light's gonna be kind of like that design better but this is still a really nice design, so you just kind of show you there's little grooves if you can see on this camera there's little groove right here on the top and then there's little grooves in here that they slide into and so they won't twist when they go inside this this come out which I which I think is a great design so once a slide and it's there and then they have the jail kit which they're really not jails they haven't nice set up for us people that have all the different colors they have um um broken down and all the main main colors and have some information on each of the jail in the little paper which I think is nice on so you just want like here's the purple you pick it out and if you notice it has the same cuts on the jail as those that it has on the plastic and so you literally would just slide that in to where you want it to be. It'll fit perfect. And then you just put that in your system and you would have had a purple jail. So it is it's a it's a little more cumbersome but it's a very effective tool. It's a very effective, nice, nice way to do things. I like their packaging and I like probably there there bounce or the soft box. Probably the best. I really like this little product that you khun band and give me a soft box or bounced card kind of versatile all in one little little thing. And again, I don't have a family it's all on there. Think forgot, but that's that's the road so product so you could look into that if you want to what's also nice is they have different. You can use him as a reflector. You put a silver in here and so it could be a nice reflector and other things too. Yes, uh, rogue versus the limit quest. Personal preference. I'm old school and you know I have used limb question for a long time and I love him. Several things I know, I know the people I know the owners and another latest works all the time to help me out so it's like it's, like your lab use, you're going to use your lab for further customer service and not necessarily for the prints that they come out with because when one comes out with something six months down the road, they're all gonna have that product. And so it's the customer service. So I love limit quest because it's a solid company with great customer service inroads defence I haven't used them long enough, so I can't I don't have the track record with him, I like their product or it wouldn't be on this table. Yeah, so I really it's a little more complicated and limit quest limit questions a very simplistic product, which I really like, that I like that as well, but the soft box I just felt from rogue is really, really nice. So it's not sound like a politician answer this question, but it's no it's great, they're both very positive and basically they're both doing the same thing absolutely great, thank you. Well on technically, then on that deluca quest actually has reflector is reflecting the light forward do you find that that requires less flash power than, say, the rogue? Because generally yes, you're like a soft box yes, it's diffusing absolutely. Yeah, generally that's why that's why I said that bounce that first product that I showed you from lim quest this is why I say everyone should have this because it's so simplistic and it's so effective and just diffuse in a little bit of light where you don't have that hot spot from this little flash you don't have that barely right on their face and it's just this this answers it it's not this huge huge soft if user you know but this is theirs given take for everything and so to me this is why I like this and that's why I liked sorry that's why I said this is a great product from looming quest if you're starting off because it has that bounce and it has the gel kit and then has the respect of the the bandit goes around to me this is like the greatest and it didn't cost much they're inexpensive products and so if you like this then you can go from there and as much as we buys photographers this is nothing this is absolutely nothing this is like this you know it's like a cup of coffee in the morning for everything that we have in our camera bag and so that's what I love about it is well there are several models of the request reflectors absolutely, yeah, there's a bunch of different ones and that's why? I said, if you like this kit, then you can expand and kind of experiment other things, but this is again, I don't want people to waste spend, you know, go out there because mike fulton says I'm creative live and I gotta buy everything of course lumet quest would probably love that, but my point is is I want you to spend your money wisely because there's not a lot of money out there I mean, it's not growing on trees if it is, I want to be your friend, but this so I want everything you just spend you actually going to use because to me, buying useless stuff is very much like the word passion everybody loves the word passion and passion is a wonderful thing, but it's also the most worthless thing if you'd never act upon it and that's, what final this useless crap you would buy and then you just throw in a drawer and that's what most people do. And so I really just want people to buy the things and actually use it. And then that makes me happy, because then it's effective it's actually worth it's like creative live you're biased realize it and you don't do anything with it it's absolutely useless for you to not use all this education that's right at your fingertips, which is why I love creative lives so much is that we're sitting here and I can not listen to it in the background, but then I can own it, and I can actually dissected when it comes to that part I'm trying to learn. Unfortunately, I don't do that all the time because I'm so busy, but again, that's what I like about creative life, I can always go back to it, but anyway getting off the subject so that's that's the road and they also come out with different other gel kits for some of the other different product, so they have a bunch of little different jails kind of package the same ways, the round ones, so that this was kind of the same way they literally can just go right over and there's a little velcro band little, I mean, like a rubber band kind of like the the one kind of like this but it's, just a black band that you can put around and he's just hold right onto your flash. So if you don't have that flash that cone jail holder you can easily just by this jail kit and it'll go right on here, the defense thes air a little thinner than the other ones, but they're thicker the thicker than the test kit than the freebies so they do hold up better than that but as you can even I don't know you can see this one's still kind of think of you I used a little bit these will actually melt if you use a little bit so they're not they're not has started these guys right here wherever these jails right here you're not going to assure these these air these air here for good if you destroy that I wanted I want to know how I mean you can don't get me wrong, but in general use this is a very this is the story of all the jails of the products that I used we cool they're trying to get everything organized all right? So thie other thing it's not really a jail holder but I want to talk about these glass this is my camera stores and juries love jury's out of nashville um I'm a big, strong believer in given business the local people and that's what I like about ron rice over douri's they're just really good people and as you can tell that I use this as a show yesterday this holds four flashes but but what I do usually is that two flashes and then my battery pack member all showed you the batter packs is has the screw in the bottom I'll put that on each side so it's nice and balanced so I have to and two it's there but I want to like about this is I'll use this take this off we're gonna get in the shooting just a second and it allows me not only multiple flashes and this is how I like if I'm gonna use multiple flashes more anything but then I can actually use umbrellas so if I want to put my flashes up there and this is just a simple small umbrella very easy any company has um this is so I mean you don't have to get all fancy but then I actually have theobald ulla mount right here that I came out my umbrella small easy what you have to be aware of here if you get really really busy with this needed tighten it down maybe if you get really really busy with this anyway I think I broke it in travel I did there's a crack right there sorry creative live live stuff but if you um get really really too big with this and it's up here this is gonna blow over like crazy so you have to be really aware this is the most dangerous product to use with the flash when you're outside because this is going to catch the wind the most of anything it's a nice, simple diffuser but it will break really really easy fall over and break so just be aware that don't don't get too crazy with these I like um uh you have that snapped that's funny love to say, but I wouldn't get any bigger than this if you're going to flash a wink, I wouldn't get any bigger than this small little umbrella twelve to fifteen inches as much as I would I would try to go anything bigger than that you just one the little light source is not going to really defuse that much better um and two is just so much more that the winds gonna catch it's going to blow stuff over. So if you're going to get bigger than this, you might as well just go with the strobe with a soft box or beauty dish or something else like that so that's those and then last but not least and you'll see why this is actually a soft box that I helped designed from denny manufacturing. So in all fairness it does have my name on it, so we use this on cloudy days seattle would love this because of the clouds you have but it's ah it's an umbrella design it's very simple just like an umbrella you just snap it together and it's twenty two inch octagon and then it has what I like and and a lot of them have it but it has basically the medal just a spin back plate that spins and it's on a ball ball hinge. So I actually can loosen this up. And I can tell this anywhere I want, which is was important to me because I wanted to maybe have that for, like, the butterfly light. I wanted to be able to tilt this soft box and the way it works is just three little three little washers and nuts. And you can loosen him up and slide him in. I would suggest sometimes, depending on where you are maybe getting a larger washer. Sometimes I really think these air probably a little too small, and the washer just fits on and then slides in you just tighten this down and this connects also act as a spin plates. If you want to know if this I have because I have a square one as well, I mean a rectangle so you can actually spend it, and then it just mounts right on the light stand and there's your soft box. So if I'm really going to do anything, I like this better than a umbrella because it closes off that front and it keeps it wind also like the deeper lip here. Because if you looked at the sweet light that I brought out yesterday, it has a larger ej here and that allows for the light to kick around a little bit more. So when the light comes out, it actually kicks and moves around and it actually I know that sounds maybe a little ridiculous, but it actually softens the feathers that up for like a feel like where that remember how macy was walking up yesterday and that light which is beautiful all the way around her face that's because of this edge, if this right here was all the way out, you wouldn't have nears much feathering and then you showed us yesterday at the football player that's what this's what this one and but it was too windy that I wanted to use it because it's cloudy on cloudy days! I love this because again on sunny days where I am, I can't afford to have this diffuser because I don't have enough power coming out of my flashes on a cloudy day I can use this get great soft diffuser, but it was so windy because that football stadium is it's in the city of freeport, texas it's literally right on the water and so I tried it took it off and just bare bulb would you use this endorse? Absolutely in fact, if I use something at a reception hall, this is what I would use on both ends something like this and they have other ones out there just because it's, you know, just because it's the tri coast edition doesn't mean you have to buy the tracker position don't care, but to me, this is easy, there's, some other ones that I love, the ones that collapse or saltbox of class. But again, I live on the beach and I've tried those and I'm out of them and they like squeeze around the back plate and I put it down on a ready shoot and then wind comes in that thing goes often it's just floating down the water down the beach blamed blown down the beach. So this is a lot more started, which is why I designed it that way. Mike, will you show us how you attach the flash with this big ring in the back? Just a hot shoe going just a little and you just slides right on and it goes right into the to the opening so very simplistic and what's nice about this is if I wanted to I don't have radio poppers, I can actually turn the optical part backwards and mount the flash this way with the magnet I could mount it that way now that's new, but I can literally mount the flash that way and the part that picks up the signal well, actually still be out so I actually can do optical as well without so you don't necessarily have to have a radio transmission device to use this product and some other products so well, so the ones that actually have that go inside a soft box and close you would have to have a radio transmission device for it to operate where this you don't have to I'm actually kind of digging this thiss magnet thing I hadn't is it a little the first time I've ever done that? I've never thought about it so that's ah, because that would actually perfectly work in a in a situation so yeah, very simple and it also can raise up and down on this little plate right here, so if you wanted to mount the flash a little higher a little lower you could do that it also has an inside baffle if you want to soften it up so more in a really cloudy day, but I don't even though my big soft boxes I don't use the inside bath full on anything, so I think it's great, but I'll take it up and it goes right in the closet I don't use it at all would you name again the source of this? This is a denny in fact I think it's on the program sorry, denny manufacturing yeah logo sorry they're at a mobile they um they're the oldest of the largest proper backdrop company in the world for the most part and um long story short my daughter's thirteen years old today and when she was a tbt tiny girl photographing daycare that's really how started in my ball in business and they wanted a christmas set and so it was this ten years ago and so I went to denny's and it's expensive some of this stuff is expensive part of the other people and I'm like no I'm gonna try it out and I bought us a backdrop and I unrolled it and it looked horrible I'm like I just spent this much money for this and then I took one photo of it and it just came to life on the camera and I went now I understand why I spent that much money and I still use that backdrop today and so I've just been a big fan of denny's every single backdrop in our businesses denny's and it's not because I could go other places because I could be on the board of directors of the bpm herself I could get other companies to work with but I choose to work with them and I just enjoy what I liked that denise is the stand easy standing from them and I went to him and said, look, this is really a product that I no photographers that one and he's going to go after it. And I like that where a lot of people wouldn't go through the hassle of trying to serve their customers. And so that's that's my spill on them. So I enjoy.