Boys And Their Toys

Of course there are no toys in this shot, at least none that the viewer can see. The "toys" are mine. Santa brought me a couple of new pieces of photo gear and I finally got a chance to try them out today.

First was a Honl 1/4" Speed Grid. A speed grid is an attachment that goes on the front of a speedlight strobe and looks somewhat like a honeycomb. The light passing through the honeycomb grid forms a circular light with soft fall off around the edges. In this shot, the speed grid is positioned to the far right of the subject and you can see how his face and upper torso are evenly lit, with the light level softly tapering off from his arms and downward.

The second toy is a Wescott Apollo 28 soft box. In this case the soft box is positioned to the immediate left of camera and providing fill for the main light coming from the speed grid.

Both have a distinct advantage over umbrellas by way of controlling light spill. Where as umbrellas tend to throw light all over the place, both the speed grid and the Apollo 28 softbox provide much more directional control and the ability to feather the edge of the light where you want. In this shot for instance, I have my lens bumped right up against the edge of the soft box in order to get it as near to on-axis as possible. I could never do that with an umbrella because it would end up spilling light and flaring into the lens.

I'm looking forward to doing a whole lot more shooting with these in the next few weeks.